In a comprehensive Turkish military attack targeting different areas in northern Iraq and northeast Syria, nine individuals were reportedly killed on Tuesday night.
In Sinjar (Shengal), northern Iraq, the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBŞ) announced that a total of 21 targets were hit in Turkish airstrikes between 10PM on Tuesday and 3AM on Wednesday, and three civilians were killed in the attacks. YBŞ is a Yazidi self-defence force established during Islamic State (ISIS) attacks in Yazidi homeland Sinjar in 2014.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the armed force of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), said in a press release that a power station near the city of Derik was hit in Turkish airstrikes on Tuesday night, killing four SDF fighters and injuring five power station workers.
Earlier the administration of the Makhmur Refugee Camp in the Iraqi Kurdistan had announced that two security officers at the camp were killed in the Turkish airstrikes. The camp, built by the United Nations (UN) High Commissioner for Refugees, houses thousands of Kurdish refugees from Turkey who’d been displaced during Turkish military operations that involved forced evacuation and destruction of hundreds of villages in Turkey’s Kurdish-majority provinces.
The UN’s office in Iraq said on Twitter: “Following airstrikes in Ninewa with civilian casualties reported, we reiterate that Iraqi sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected at all times. Local populations must be protected, disputes should be addressed through dialogue and cooperation.”
The Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and Neçirvan Barzani, the president of the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG), had a meeting in the Turkish capital of Ankara merely hours after the Turkish airstrikes. “The meeting focused on bilateral relations of Turkey with Iraq and the Kurdistan Region, reaffirming the mutual willingness to further strengthen the important commercial and economic ties between the two sides,” a statement by the KRG Presidency said.
