Turkey launched a wave of airstrikes by 60 warplanes early on Wednesday targeting Kurdish militia positions in northern areas of Iraq and Syria.
The Turkish military said the airstrikes hit Derik in northern Syria, and Sinjar and Karacak in northern Iraq. The targets were outlawed PKK militants, who have bases in Iraq, and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Turkey regards both groups as terrorists.
Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said “many terrorists” were killed.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitor based in Britain, said four security staff died in an airstrike on a Kurdish-run power station near Al-Malikiyah in Hassakeh province.
Iraq’s military condemned what it called a Turkish infiltration into Iraqi air space as a violation of its sovereignty, although Baghdad is widely thought to be giving Ankara free rein to attack the militants.
It called on Ankara “to put an end to these violations,” and said “Iraq is fully prepared to cooperate (with Ankara) to stabilize the situation on the border.”
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the semi-autonomous Kurdish administration’s de facto army, said four of its fighters died in the attack and vowed vengeance against Turkey.
The YPG — which forms the backbone of the SDF fighting IS in Syria — also condemned the Turkish airstrikes, which followed an attack by Daesh on a prison in Hassakeh province last month in an attempt to free their fighters.
“Turkey tries to continue what Daesh started,” the YPG said. “Everyone has to take action against this attack now.”
The YPG is viewed by Ankara as the PKK’s Syria offshoot.
On Wednesday, shelling on the Turkish-held city of Al-Bab in northern Syria killed eight people, including five civilians, according to the Observatory which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.
It didn’t specify who was responsible but Kurdish forces and Syrian regime troops are both deployed in the region.
Turkish forces escalated attacks in northeastern Syria on Wednesday evening, shelling “about 20 villages and sites… in the Hasakah countryside and north of Raqqa governorate,” the Observatory added later.
It said the attacks targeted residential areas and displaced a large number of people.
The Turkish strike came hours after hundreds of mourners gathered in Al-Malikiyah for mass funerals honoring Kurdish fighters killed in a week of battles with Daesh extremists who had attacked the Ghwayran jail on January 20.
Since the start of its military intervention in Syria in 2016, Ankara has sporadically bombed the YPG and carried out military operations targeting Daesh and Kurdish forces.
Turkey also routinely carries out attacks in Iraq, where the PKK has bases and training camps in the Sinjar region and on the mountainous border with Turkey.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has threatened to “clean up” parts of northern Iraq, accuses the PKK of using the border area as a springboard for its insurgency.
In December, Turkey carried out retaliatory air strikes in northern Iraq after three Turkish soldiers died in a PKK attack.