One killed in suspected Turkish strike in Sulaimani province

ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - One person was killed overnight in an unidentified strike in the mountains of eastern Sulaimani province, a district mayor said on Sunday. A conflict monitor blamed Turkey.

“Around 11 pm last night, an airstrike targeting a house near the Shorey valley of Galala village killed Mohammed Saeed,” Kamaran Hassan, mayor of Mawat, told Rudaw. Mawat is located in Sulaimani’s eastern mountains, near the border with Iran.

Hassan said that it is unclear who the perpetrator was. The timing of the strike coincided with Iran’s launch of hundreds of drones and missiles towards Israel. The drones and missiles could be seen flying over the Kurdistan Region and Iraq and the remains of a missile were found near Rawanduz, in Erbil province.

Kamaran Osman, a member of the Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT), a human rights organization that monitors Turkey’s operation in the Kurdistan Region, told Rudaw that the victim, who is from Sulaimani, went to his house in Galala village along with some friends.

“His friends returned to Sulaimani and he was alone in the house when it was targeted in an airstrike by Turkish airplanes,” Osman said.

Turkey frequently bombards areas of the Kurdistan Region under the pretext of targeting Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters. In late February Osman told Rudaw that Ankara conducted 1,548 such attacks in 2023.

Media affiliated with the PKK also blamed Turkey for the attack.

The Turkish defense ministry has not yet commented.

Iraq’s National Security Council banned the PKK from operating in the country last month, following a high-level meeting between Turkish and Iraqi officials. The two sides discussed measures to be taken against the group, which Baghdad said poses a security threat to both countries.

The PKK killed dozens of Turkish soldiers throughout the course of last winter, exploiting harsh weather conditions that disturb Ankara’s aerial operations, especially its effective use of drones.

In March, the PKK announced that it had downed 15 Turkish drones between February 2023 and March 2024. It said it has acquired new missile systems to shoot down the drones, but did not provide details on the type and quantity of the acquisition.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said last month that Ankara is close to completing a zone that will “permanently resolve” the security issues along their border with the Kurdistan Region and Iraq by the summer.

Erdogan is expected to visit Iraq later this month and border security is expected to be one of the topics of discussion.