PEREGRAF
Two civilians driving members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were killed in a Turkish drone attack in Sulaimaniyah province’s Aghjalar sub-district, local officials told Peregraf. Family members of the civilians said the PKK guerrillas were in need of medical attention, all of whom died in the attack.
The drone attack targeted a Toyota pickup carrying five passengers, Hemin Bahjat, the sub-district mayor told Peregraf. "It is reported that three of those killed were PKK guerrillas, and the other two are civilians and are well-known people of the area," he said.
"There have been rumours of armed movements belonging to the Kurdistan Workers' Party in the area for some time, but we are not sure who the other three victims are," added Bajhat.
The PKK has been in conflict with Turkey for about four decades. The group is fighting for the rights and autonomy of Turkey’s Kurds and much of the conflict is taking place in the mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
The two civilians killed in the Saturday attack were cousins and in-laws who “were not members of the PKK,” Kosrat Jumaa, a cousin of the victims told Peregraf.
"Ismail is a retired Peshmerga of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan [PUK] and Aram Kakakhan was a member and supporter of the PUK," said Jumaa. "There was no relation between them and the PKK, except that they [PKK] is in the area and because of that they knew each other,” he reiterated.
Aram Kakakhan, 43, was the chief of Tutaqal village and the father of seven children, and his cousin and son-in-law Esmail Ibrahim, 50, was the father of ten children.
Jumaa added that the two were “transporting PKK patients” and were targeted around 9:00 am. "The car was targeted and burned, it was a car belonging to the PKK, and three of their people were also martyred," Jumaa said.
Before the vehicle was targeted, sources and witnesses said the strikes started at 5:00 am and targeted a PKK headquarter stationed in the village.
Kamaran Osman, a member of the Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT) confirmed the details in a Facebook post on Saturday, citing family sources.
"The PKK headquarters in the mountains is three kilometers away from Tutaqala village, but they [the people] are not aware of their movements and they [PKK members] do not mix with the people. The headquarter has been in the village for nearly five years," Jumaa noted.
He added that "ten families live in Tutaqal. They all have evacuated it because the headquarter being there puts the village in danger and makes it possible for Turkey to bomb it.”
A police source from Chamchamal district where Aghjalar is located, speaking on the condition of anonymity said "there are [PKK] bases in 13 places, but we don't know where their exact locations are,” adding that they were investigating the bombardment.
"PKK did not allow bodies of their members to be registered and sent to forensics,” added the source.
Turkey established 37 military bases and intelligence bases in the Kurdistan Region in the 1990s, most of them more than 35 kilometers deep into the region's territory, according to a CPT report.
The report also wrote that more than 99 civilians had been killed by Turkish operations and bombardments since 2015, hundreds of villages have been evacuated and thousands of lives have been at risk.
Ankara frequently targets the group in the region. Hours after the Saturday airstrike, Turkey bombarded Mahmour camp, which houses refugees from the Kurdish parts of Turkey and suspected PKK guerrillas.
It launched an operation on April 17, codenamed Claw-Lock, in Duhok province and it is still ongoing. It has also launched attacks in other parts of Sulaimaniyah province, as well as Duhok and Nineveh provinces.
Kurdish political refugee Zaki Chalabi was killed in his own restaurant in a crowded street in Sulaimaniyah city last week, an incident a representative of the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) accused Turkey of carrying out.
"Our fighter and dear comrade Zaki Chalabi has been punished by the Turkish state and had to move to the Kurdistan Region. He has been in the Kurdistan Region for 12 years and lived in Sulaimaniyah. Unfortunately, he was brutally assassinated by Turkey," Hikmat Khatib, HDP’s co-representative in the Kurdistan Region said in a press conference.
The ruling party of Sulaimaniyah province, the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) expressed "deep concern" over the attack, and called on the Iraqi government to prevent them, as well as the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) to invite the Turkish consulate for meetings.
Turkey has not claimed any responsibility for the attack and the KRG has not yet released a statement on the incident.