Turkey said on Saturday it had carried out airstrikes on nearly 30 “terrorist targets” in northern Iraq and Syria overnight after nine of its soldiers were killed at a military base in Iraq, Agence France-Presse reported.
“Air operations were carried out on terrorist targets in the regions of Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil,” the ministry said in a statement.
The Turkish soldiers were killed during clashes that followed an attempted intrusion at the base near the northern Iraqi city of Metina, the ministry said, revising upward a previous toll of five.
The ministry said the strikes had targeted 29 locations including “caves, bunkers, shelters and oil installations” belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Syrian Kurdish militia which is a central element of US-allied forces in a coalition against Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).
Ankara has operated several dozen military posts in the area for the past 25 years in its decades-old war against the PKK, a group designated by Turkey and many of its Western allies as a terrorist organization.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan was due to hold an emergency security meeting Saturday in İstanbul to discuss the uptick in attacks on troops in the region.
Meanwhile, 113 people were arrested for suspected links to the PKK in nationwide raids on Saturday, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X.
