ANKARA (Dispatches) – Turkey’s army hit Kurdish militants in northern Iraq in a new ground-and-air offensive.
Commando forces landed in Iraq’s Metina region from helicopters while fighter jets bombed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets, the defense ministry said on Sunday.
Turkish television showed images of paratroopers jumping from helicopters and camouflaged soldiers firing assault weapons.
In a televised speech, Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said the operation began on Friday and involved special forces backed by drones and attack helicopters.
The PKK, listed as a "terrorist group” by Turkey and much of the international community, has been using Iraq’s northern mountains as a springboard in its decades-long rebellion against the Turkish state.
The Turkish army regularly conducts cross-border offensives and air attacks against PKK bases in northern Iraq.
However, officials in the Iraqi Kurdistan say some of the Turkish strikes target civilians.
Baghdad views Turkey’s airstrikes on its Kurdistan region as a violation of the Arab country’s sovereignty and has repeatedly called on Ankara to stop its unlawful raids.
The Turkish strikes have prompted Baghdad to summon Ankara’s ambassador several times. Iraq has also warned that it has the means of confronting Ankara’s aggression.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dubbed the latest offensive ‘Operation Claw-Lightning’.
Speaking to the command centre by video link, Erdogan said the offensive was designed "to completely end the presence of the terror threat … along our southern borders”.
"There’s no room for the separatist terror group in the future of Turkey, Iraq or Syria,” Erdogan said in reference to the Kurdish militants.