Three members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were killed Saturday in a drone strike on northern Iraq blamed on the Turkish army, Kurdish counter-terrorism forces said.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had announced Wednesday that Turkey would “continue to intensify” its strikes targeting fighters from the Kurdish militant group in Syria and Iraq.
The PKK, which has waged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey, is considered a terrorist group by Ankara and its Western allies.
Erdogan’s announcement followed a suicide attack on October 1 that injured two policemen in Ankara and was later claimed by the PKK.
Saturday’s strike in Iraq by a “Turkish army drone” targeted a “vehicle belonging to PKK fighters” in Dohuk province in Iraqi Kurdistan, counter-terrorism forces in the autonomous northern region said in a statement.
“A high-ranking official and two fighters from the PKK were killed,” it added.
The Turkish army rarely comments on its strikes in Iraq, but it has launched repeated aerial and ground operations targeting members of the Kurdish group in northern Iraq in recent years.
