The Iraqi Foreign Ministry on June 18 summoned both the Turkish and Iranian ambassadors to protest recent military operations both their countries launched on Iraqi territory, in a seemingly coordinated drive against revolutionary Kurdish forces. In a series of raids over the past days, Ankara's warplanes and Tehran's artillery targeted presumed strongholds of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK [9]) and Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iran (KDPI [10]), respectively. Local Kurdish and Yazidi communities reported that fields and woodlands had been set ablaze and families forced to flee by the bombardment. Turkey has also sent a contingent of special forces troops across the border into northern Iraq as a part of the operation, codenamed "Claw Eagle." The troops are backed up by combat helicopters and drones.
The Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS [11]), a Yazidi militia, in the autonomous Sinjar [12] area of Iraq’s Ninevah province, were also apparently targeted in the Turkish air-raids. Turkey has been for years targeting presumed PKK positions [13] in northern Iraq, but the current operation is said to be by far the largest. (Kurdistan24 [7], Al Jazeera [14], Ezidikhan Information Bureau [15])