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An aerial view of Hiror village in Duhok province on May 16, 2022. Photo: Bilind T. Abdullah/Rudaw
HIROR, Kurdistan Region - The sound of Turkish artillery bombs and surveillance drones can still be heard from a distance in Duhok province’s Barwari Balla area, though with Iraqi border guards setting up a base in one of the border villages on Saturday, life has almost returned to normal after weeks of bombardment.
If you look closely, one can see a Turkish base on the mountain across the village of Hiror, ten kilometers south of the Turkish border, and Turkish troops almost nine kilometers deep into the Kurdistan Region.
Two white surveillance drones are patrolling the skies of the area, and while the sound of the occasional artillery fire has become a daily occurrence, locals in Hiror rest assured knowing they are no longer the target.
Turkey announced a new phase in a series of military operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Duhok province last month. Dubbed Operation Claw-Lock, the air and ground campaign heavily focuses on mountainous areas on Turkey’s borders with the Kurdistan Region.
Despite locals of Hiror claiming there was never a PKK presence in their village, Turkey set up base right on top of the mountain overlooking the village, and bombarded it for days, putting the residents in a constant state of terror and forcing many to leave.
.jpg "Turkish base on top of a mountain overlooking Hiror village in Duhok province, on May 16, 2022. Photo: Dilan Sirwan/Rudaw")
“There was never any PKK in this village, we do not know why Turkey attacks us,” Ayman Khalil, a young villager in his early twenties told Rudaw English on Monday.
When Khalil met Rudaw’s team on a small steel bridge in the village, he was initially dressed in a jacket from the Iraqi border guards, and was riding in the same car with them. He later revealed to Rudaw that he was in fact not a member of the border guards, but just enjoyed spending time with them.
When Turkish bombs landed on Hiror, Khalil did not leave. He chose to stay and documented the majority of the damages done to the houses in the village. His phone is filled with different pictures and video footages of buildings destroyed by Turkish shelling.
.jpg "Material damage caused by Turkish bombardment of Hiror village in early May, 2022. Photo: Ayman Khalil/submitted")
“At one point, Turkish troops got down from the mountain and came to the edges, but they never entered the village,” Khalil said, pointing to the edge of the mountain. “But for the past three to four days, it has been calm.”
Iraqi border guards set up their latest base in Hiror on Saturday. The base, still new, is located atop a mountain right across the Turkish base and is one of numerous other bases set up by the border guards over the years.
“In the past three years, we have tried to set up a line, from the Dashta Takhe area in Zakho district until Kani Masi, we have set up around 18 bases over a hundred kilometers," Commander of border guards in Duhok province, Brigadier General Dler Farzanda Zebari told Rudaw on Monday.
"We have done this to become a barrier in front of Turkish forces and prevent them from entering the borders further and setting base in those areas, but also to protect our people," he added.
Following the US invasion of Iraq in 2003, the Iraqi border guards have set up 73 bases over an area of 250 kilometers, starting from the town of Rabia near the Syrian border, all the way to the Sarzer border crossing with Turkey.
According to information obtained by Rudaw English, over the past three years, Turkey has at times breached the Iraqi borders and entered around 15 kilometers into the Kurdistan Region.
Since 2019, Turkey has launched multiple operations on the PKK in the Kurdistan Region.
Ankara launched Operation Claw against the PKK in Khakurk in May 2019. This was followed by Operation Claw-Tiger in June 2020. The third edition of the offensive was a ground and air cross-border operation, dubbed Operation Claw-Lightning and Operation Claw-Thunderbolt, launched in April 2021.
Related: Turkey’s fresh military campaign against the PKK in Duhok: Why now?
The latest edition of the offensive, dubbed Operation Claw-Lock, was announced last month.
The operation has damaged many houses in the area.
Fleeing from the village around seven months ago, Iskan Hassan is back to Hiror with his family, and his hope is that he would not have to leave again due to bombardments.
“Hiror was in a very bad situation, bombardments were in the center of the village, hitting the houses, the streets, and our electricity was cut multiple times,” Hassan told Rudaw on Monday, while pointing to large holes caused by the shelling and shattered windows.
“The border guards have come here and the village’s situation is calmer and better, and I hope it gets even better,” he added.
On an average late spring day, temperature levels are still very low in Hiror with trees all around the village and mountains fully green; it is as though one has entered some kind of paradise. The air remains clean, sheltered by its nature from the orange sand blanketing the rest of the country.
However, years of conflict has left many people with no other choice but to leave their homes. Now, out of around 60 families who used to live in Hiror, only 20 remain, five of which recently returned.
More than 500 villages have been emptied in the Kurdistan Region over three decades of the Turkey-PKK conflict.
According to the Turkish defense ministry’s latest figures, 104 PKK fighters have been “neutralized” since their operation started last month.
The PKK said that at least 465 Turkish soldiers have been "punished" since the start of the operation, and 106 others have been injured, while confirming the death of 15 of its fighters.
Turkey’s army often uses the term neutralize to refer to combatants killed or injured on the battlefield, while the PKK uses the term punished.
Both the PKK and Ankara often release exaggerated death tolls of the other side.
The recent Turkish incursion has been widely condemned by Iraqi officials, labeling it as a "hostile" and "provocative" violation of the country's sovereignty.
Additional reporting by Farhad Dolamari
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