More than 100 terrorists from the PKK terror group and its Syrian wing's armed forces, the People's Protection Units (YPG), were killed Saturday in separate Turkish airstrikes against PKK elements based in the Sinjar region of northern Iraq and YPG targets in Karachok Mountain in northeastern Syria and southeastern Turkey, the Turkish military said in a statement.
According to the statement, over 40 terrorists were killed in airstrikes in Sinjar, while 49 terrorists, including four senior members, were killed in Syria's Karachok. It added that Karachok airstrikes also injured 90 terrorists, mostly in critical condition.
Another series of attacks on terrorist targets in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey killed 14 militants, the army said in a separate statement. Six terrorists were killed around the area of Sinat-Haftanin in northern Iraq and eight in the countryside around Adıyaman province in two separate air strikes.
The airstrikes followed recent cross-border attacks from PKK-affiliated Democratic Union Party (PYD)-held areas in Turkey's military outpost on the border in southern provinces of Hatay, Mardin and Şanlıurfa.
Recently, Turkish authorities have asserted that the PKK would be targeted by the Turkish military if it did not leave the Sinjar area. "We [Turkey] will use military options against the PKK in Sinjar. I'm not saying that we will only use military force if necessary, I'm saying that we will use military force without question," Foreign Minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu told Daily Sabah recently.
The PKK, which is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and EU, resumed its armed campaign against Turkey in July 2015, and has since been responsible for the deaths of approximately 1,200 security personnel and civilians, including women and children. Over 12,000 PKK terrorists are estimated to have been killed in the same period.
