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Over dozen PKK terrorists slain in Turkish airstrikes in northern Iraq

In this file picture, militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) stand in formation in northern Iraq. (Photo by Reuters)

The Turkish military says more than a dozen members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militant group have been killed in a series of airstrikes carried out in Iraq's northern semi-autonomous Kurdistan region late last month.

The Turkish General Staff, in a statement released on Monday, announced that Turkish fighter jets bombarded Hakurk region last week, killing at least 13 PKK terrorists in the process.

On April 15, the Turkish military stated that a high-profile PKK militants had been killed as Turkish military aircraft struck Hakurk-Kani Rash region, killing Birdal Burhanli, better known by the nom de guerre Agiri Mazlum Pirdogan.

The governor’s office of Turkey’s eastern province of Tunceli announced last December that senior PKK terrorist Murat Dag, better known by the nom de guerre Ferhat Yilmaz, had been killed along with seven other terrorists during an offensive in the Pulumur district of the province, situated some 800 kilometers (497 miles) east of the capital Ankara.

PKK militants regularly clash with Turkish forces in the Kurdish-dominated southeast of Turkey attached to northern Iraq.

Turkey, along with the European Union and the United States, has declared the PKK a terrorist group and has banned it. The militant group has been seeking an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against PKK positions in the country as well as in northern Iraq and neighboring Syria.

More than 40,000 people have been killed during the three-decade conflict between Turkey and the autonomy-seeking militant group.


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