SULAIMANI (ESTA) — A Turkish airstrike on the Kurdistan Region’s Qandil mountains has cut off power supply to several villages in the area, the ministry of electricity said on Saturday.
Turkish warplanes bombed the foothills of Qandil mountains late on Friday, damaging power lines in the area.
In a statement, the Region’s electricity ministry said the strike had cut off power supply to the villages of Zargali, Bokriskan and Lewzha in Warte su-district, 135.5 kilometers northeast of Erbil.
Co-chair of Qandil municipality Mohammed Hassan told Esta Media Network that the strike had also damaged the road in the mountain’s foothills.
“The road was opened by our municipality after the airstrike, normalizing travel for civilians,” Hassan said.
The road links Raparin administration to the districts of Soran, Choman and Rawanduz.
“We are in talks with the directorate of electricity in Warte to repair the national power lines,” he added.
It was not the first time that power supply to villages in the Region had been cut due to Turkish strikes.
In April, power supply to 76 villages in the Kurdistan Region’s district of Amedi was cut off due to continuous Turkish airstrikes and artillery shelling.
Turkey has taken its decades-old conflict with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) deep into the Kurdistan Region, establishing military bases and deploying armed military drones against the fighters in their mountain strongholds.
Most of the operations have focused on territory up to 30 km (20 miles) from the border.
