Turkish Drone Strike Kills 5 Kurdish Fighters in Northern Iraq

Turkey launched a drone strike in Iraq’s northern province of Nineveh Sunday, killing five Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters, including a woman, the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service said. The five PKK members were killed when the drone targeted their vehicle, near a village west of Mosul, Nineveh’s provincial capital, some 400 kilometers north of Baghdad, according to a statement by the Iraqi Counter-Terrorism Service. Nineveh Province Governor Najm al-Jubouri said in a separate statement that Turkey’s drone strike hit a civilian vehicle, killing four men and a woman. The governor strongly condemned the attack, which he said would destabilize the security situation in Nineveh, and demanded that Iraq’s central government also protest the Turkish attack. Turkish forces often carry out ground offensives, airstrikes, and artillery bombardments of PKK strongholds in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, especially the Qandil Mountains.