MIDEAST-CRISIS/TURKEY-IRAQ AIRSTRIKES Kurdish villagers flee as Turkey carries out airstrikes in Iraq

Record ID: 145846

  • Title: MIDEAST-CRISIS/TURKEY-IRAQ AIRSTRIKES Kurdish villagers flee as Turkey carries out airstrikes in Iraq
  • Date: 29th July 2015
  • Summary: AMADIYA, IRAQ (JULY 29, 2015) (REUTERS) VARIOUS OF SMOKE RISING IN FOREST ROOTS OF TREE KNOCKED OVER BY EXPLOSION HOLE IN THE GROUND MAN WALKING IN FOREST AS SMOKE RISES AROUND HIM MAN/HOLE IN GROUND VARIOUS OF BURNT TREES MAN WALKING NEAR REMAINS OF BURNT TENT REMNANTS OF TENT ON GROUND (SOUNDBITE) (Kurdish) KURDISH RESIDENT OF AMADIYA, SALIM AHMED SALIM, SAYING: "Half of
  • Embargoed: 13th August 2015 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: Iraq
  • Country: Iraq
  • Topics: General
  • Reuters ID: LVABV1XHUJ0I3WVK04NNP70EHFU7
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text: Turkish jets launched their heaviest assault on Kurdish militants in northern Iraq overnight since air strikes began last week, hours after President Tayyip Erdogan said a peace process had become impossible.
    Residents of the hillside village of Amadiya said they were living in fear as explosions hit their homes.
    Amadiya has been targeted in several airstrikes since Turkey launched its campaign on Saturday (July 26).
    Turkey said the strikes hit Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets including shelters, depots and caves in six areas.
    A senior official told Reuters it was the biggest assault since the campaign started.
    "Half of the village's residents left because of the bombardment and they are afraid to come back. Much of our harvest and farms are burnt. Fear took over our hearts, our children are afraid, all of this because of war, there is no benefit of war. We hope that the Turkish government and the PKK solve their problems with peaceful discussions," said resident Salim Ahmed Salim.
    "The bombardment happened right behind our village. All our houses were shaking. I opened the house door and the blast pushed me back. We were hit with fragments. If the situation continues like this, no one will be able to live in the village. Our houses have been damaged because of the blast," said Mohammed Taha, another resident of the village.
    Iraq condemned the airstrikes as a "dangerous escalation and an assault on Iraqi sovereignty", saying it was committed to ensuring militant attacks on Turkey were not carried out from within Iraqi territory.
    Turkey launched near-simultaneous strikes against PKK camps in Iraq and Islamic State fighters in Syria last Friday (July 25) in what Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has called a "synchronised fight against terror".
    Turkish officials have said the strikes against the PKK are a response to increased militant violence in recent weeks, including a series of targeted killings of police officers and soldiers which have been blamed on the Kurdish militant group.
    Another soldier was killed on Wednesday (July 29) and three others were seriously wounded in the eastern province of Agri in what appeared to be a PKK attack, the Dogan news agency reported.
    At least nine members of the security forces have been killed over the past week by suspected Kurdish militants.
    The PKK has said the air strikes are an attempt to "crush" the Kurdish political movement and create an "authoritarian, hegemonic system" in Turkey.
    It has stopped short of explicitly pulling out of a peace process, although it said on July 11 that Turkey's construction of military outposts, dams and roads for the armed forces' use had violated a ceasefire and that it planned to resume attacks.
    Erdogan initiated negotiations in 2012 to try to end the PKK insurgency, largely fought in the predominantly-Kurdish southeast, which has killed 40,000 people since 1984.
    The ceasefire, though fragile, had been holding since March 2013.
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