A Bayraktar Akıncı combat drone. Source: the Turkish Ministry of National Defense.
On June 1, a suspected Turkish drone strike hit a house in the district of Sinjar, one of the few heartlands of the non-Muslim Yazidi minority in northern Iraq.
In a statement, the counter-terrorism services of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region said that the drone strike wounded two fighters of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a Yazidi armed faction that is affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The all-female branch of the YBS, the Shingal Women Units (YJS), said the targeted house is located right next to a Yazidi temple.
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: fb.com/KURDISTAN.CT
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- Click to see full-size image. Source: fb.com/KURDISTAN.CT
The attack is the latest in a series of deadly drone strikes by Turkey against the PKK and its affiliates in the Kurdistan region. Three YBS fighters were killed in a Turkish drone strike on Sinjar district on May 16. Later on May 23, three more fighters of the group were killed in another strike that targeted the village of Khalaf near the district center.
The PKK helped establish the YBS, YJS and several other armed factions in Sinjar after a large-scale attack by ISIS in 2014 that saw the killing of thousands of Yazidis and the abduction of many others. These factions played a key role in the battle against the terrorist group. However, they were later blamed by the Kurdistan government and Ankara for instability in northern Iraq.
Turkey’s repeated drone strikes on northern Iraq are inflicting some losses on the PKK and its affiliates. However, the strikes are not reducing the group’s influence or limiting its freedom of operation in the region.
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