BAGHDAD (Dispatches) – Sources on Monday reported that several people were killed in a drone attack on a vehicle in the Iraqi Kurdistan region.
The attack was launched in the town of Ranya located in Sulaymaniyah province, an Iraqi source cited.
The source also added that several people were killed during the incident but did not provide the exact number of casualties.
The identity of the victims is not known yet.
No groups or individuals have yet claimed responsibility for the attack so far.
The attack comes two weeks after at least five people, including a woman, were killed in a Turkish drone strike in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, as Ankara ramps up its cross-border offensives in the Arab country.
Iraqi security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the victims lost their lives after a drone bombarded their vehicle in the Tigris region, west of the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, on July 18.
Najm al-Jubouri, the governor of Nineveh province, strongly condemned the drone strike, saying such attacks would destabilize the security situation in the Iraqi province and called for a protest by the Iraqi government, Xinhua news agency reported.
Turkey launched a new cross-border incursion into Iraq, dubbed Operation Claw-Lock, in April. The air-and-ground military attacks target suspected strongholds of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the Zab, Basiyan, Avasheen, and Korajiwar districts in the Kurdistan region.
The Iraqi government summoned the Turkish ambassador, Ali Riza Guney, shortly afterward and handed him a “strongly worded” protest note over the offensive, calling it a blatant violation of the Arab country’s sovereignty.
For its part, Ankara also summoned the Iraqi charge d’affaires and warned him that the military operations will continue if Baghdad doesn’t take action against PKK members.
Last month, the Iraqi Foreign Ministry condemned in the strongest terms a Turkish drone strike in the Kurdistan region that killed several people, pledging that appropriate measures will be taken after the completion of an investigation into the deadly attack.
The ministry said in the statement, released on June 17, that such actions are “a threat to the security of ordinary people, several of whom lost their lives and sustained injuries as a result of the attack.”
“This attack undermines the security of Iraq and stability of its people and requires a unified stance to be confronted,” the statement added.