Three Civilians Killed in Suspected Turkish Drone Strike in Northern Iraq, Reports CPT
Day on from another fatal strike
Three civilians killed in suspected Turkish drone strike near Sulaymaniyah
SULAYMANIYAH — Three civilians were killed Thursday afternoon in a suspected Turkish drone strike near the village of Hermila, in the Zalan sub-district of Sharbazher, according to Community Peacemaker Teams.
“At approximately 1:40 p.m. today, a Turkish drone struck a Toyota Hilux with a Sulaymaniyah license plate near Hermila village,” Kamran Osman, the Kurdistan Team coordinator for Community Peacemaker Teams, told 964media.
Osman reported the casualties included “a local from Chaman village in Zalan and a child who had a cannula in his hand.” He added that identifying the third victim was difficult due to severe burns. “The third victim was so severely burned that their face was disfigured, making identification impossible,” he said.
The strike comes a day after another suspected Turkish drone attack in the Khalakan sub-district of Dukan, Sulaymaniyah, which killed three people. Turkey has ramped up operations against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and its affiliates in the Kurdistan Region, particularly through Operation Claw-Lock, initiated in April 2022.
These operations frequently involve drone strikes targeting vehicles on major roads, with PKK officials, affiliates, and civilians among the casualties. On Aug. 23, a Turkish drone strike on the Sulaymaniyah-Halabja road killed two media workers from Chatr Multimedia Production, which operates PKK-affiliated Sterk TV.
Outside the Kurdistan Region, on July 8, a suspected Turkish drone strike in Sinjar targeted a vehicle carrying a crew from Cira TV, another PKK-linked media outlet, killing reporter Murad Mirza and injuring two colleagues.
A report released Aug. 14 by the American human rights organization Community Peacemaker Teams – Iraqi Kurdistan detailed that since 1991, Turkish and Iranian military actions in the Kurdistan Region have killed 425 civilians and injured 420. The report attributes over 83% of these casualties to Turkish military operations, with a significant increase since 2018.