SULAIMANI (ESTA) — Turkish warplanes bombed a security center in Sinjar on Thursday night, but casualties remained unclear.
Turkish fighter jets launched an air strike against Yazidis’ Asayish center in the village of Bare in Sinjar district at 08:00 p.m. (EBL time) on Thursday, Esta Media Network has learned.
Casualties remained unclear as Turkish warplanes were still flying in the skies in the area.
It was the third Turkish air strike on Sinjar in the past month. On August 21, a Turkish drone targeted a clinic in the village of Sekaina in Sinjar, killing eight people and wounding four others.
Among the dead were four employees of the clinic and four fighters from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK)-linked 80th Brigade of Iraq’s powerful, state-sponsored Hashid al-Shaabi.
The 80th Brigade is made up of Yazidi minority, who were persecuted by the Islamic State group from 2014 and whose bastion is Sinjar.
Sinjar’s deputy mayor Jalal Khalef told AFP that the air raid “totally destroyed” the clinic in Sinjar, a region Ankara regularly targets in operations against the Kurdish fighters affiliated to the PKK.
The strikes came one day after a Turkish drone bombed a vehicle in Sinjar, killing three Yazidi fighters including a local chief of the Popular Mobilization forces.
Turkish forces routinely conduct operations against PKK bases in rugged mountains in the Kurdistan Region.
In August, a Turkish airstrike killed a 50-year-old man in Disheshe village in Kani Mase sub-district, northeast of Duhok.
Turkish troops have maintained a network of bases in Iraq since the mid-1990s under security agreements struck with Saddam Hussein’s regime.
Iraq regularly decries violations of its sovereignty, and has repeatedly summoned the Turkish ambassador over Ankara’s cross-border military campaign.
But Iraq, which counts on Turkey as an important commercial partner, has refrained from taking punitive measures.
The Turkish offensive in the Kurdistan Region – particularly aerial bombing – has prompted hundreds of villagers to flee their homes.
