Turkish f-16 fighter jet, 2015. Photo: Wikimedia
SINJAR, Northwest Iraq,— Turkish warplanes bombed a base belonging to the Yazidi fighters of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) on Wednesday in northwest Iraq.
Turkish fighter jets had bombed targets in the Dguri community in the mainly Yazidi Sinjar (Shingal) district.
YBS commander Zardasht Shingali and four fighters were killed and five others, including a civilian, were wounded in the bombardment.
Qassim Khalaf, a former member of the Khanasor Local Council told Rudaw earlier on Wednesday that jets struck a YBS position in the Shingal village of Dugure, north of Mount Shingal at approximately 11:00 am.
The strike was conducted by a Turkish jet, leaving a vehicle carrying YBS members destroyed. Locals are anxious and fearful, the reporter added. However, neither the Cell nor Khalaf identified the strike as Turkish.
The Turkish military routinely carries out airstrikes and artillery bombardments in Kurdistan Region and northern Iraq against suspected targets of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). The YBS allegedly is linked with the PKK.
Turkish fighter jets bomb Kurdish YBS base in Sinjar district in northwest Iraq, January 15, 2020. Photo: Roj News
The PKK played a big role in liberating Sinjar town from Islamic State IS and protecting the Yazidi civilians after IS militants attacks in 2014 and the withdrawal of Barzani’s Peshmerga forces from the area living behind thousands of Yazidi civilians and women to IS genocide.
Turkey has previously conducted airstrikes in the Sinjar region
In November 2019, Turkish fighter jets bombed an YBS base used to store weapons and ammunition. It was located in the Khana Sor community in Sinjar’s Sinune sub-district.
In March 3, 2017 clashes break out in the district of Sinune in Sinjar after Turkey-backed Barzani Roj Peshmerga were deployed to the area that is controlled by the YBS.
Turkish warplanes strike Kurdish fighters of YBS for the first time in 2017.
Senior PKK leader Zaki Shingali was killed in a Turkish airstrike in August 2018. Shingali was a Yazidi and was known to work with the YBS.
Since liberation from ISIS in December 2015, Sinjar has been controlled by a variety of armed groups, including the YBS, the Iraqi army, the Barzani Peshmerga militias, the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Iran-backed Popular Mobilization Forces (Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic).
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy in Turkish Kurdistan for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population. More than 40,000 Turkish soldiers and Kurdish rebels, have been killed in the conflict.
A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974 and currently serving a life sentence in Turkey, has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.
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