File image.
On July 20, alleged Turkish airstrikes targeted several resorts in Zakho district of the Duhok province in the Iraqi Kurdistan Region, killing or wounding dozens of tourists.
Chiya Amin, head of Zakho’s tourism directorate, said that at least eight tourists were killed and 23 others were wounded as a result of the airstrikes. Many of the casualties were reportedly women and children. According to Amin, tourists were part of a 200-person group that came all the way from the capital, Baghdad.
From his side, Zakho mayor Muhsin Bashir was quoted by the Rudaw network as saying that two round of Turkish airstrikes hit the town of Parakh. The local official claimed that members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) “were roaming the village, which led Turkey to bombard it”.
Videos from Zakho show an airstrike on a river-side resort as well as several tourists, including children, being rushed to the district’s hospital.
This was the single deadliest Turkish attack on northern Iraq since Ankara launched Operation Claw-Lock against PKK cells in the region in April. The aerial attack was likely a response to recent attacks by the PKK that claimed the lives of two Turkish service members.
The Turkish Ministry of National Defense acknowledged the loss on July 17. On the same day, five people were killed and two others were wounded when a Turkish combat drone targeted a vehicle in the outskirts of the town of Haj Dijlah to the west of the city of Mosul. While Kurdish officials said the casualties were members of the PKK, local sources said that they were civilians from Mosul.
Turkey has acknowledged losing a total of 38 service members since the beginning of Operation Claw-Lock in northern Iraq.
The airstrikes on Zakho led to a backlash in Iraq against Turkey as well as against the Kurdistan Government Region and the federal government in Baghdad who were accused by some Iraqis on social networks of facilitating Ankara’s military operations in northern Iraq. The airstrikes could provoke a serious response from the PKK, or even pro-Iranian factions.
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