Turkey attacks Kurdish militant targets in Syria and Ireland

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey struck suspected Kurdish militant targets in Syria and Iraq for a second day Thursday after a attack on the premises of an important defense company killing at least five people, the state news agency reported.

The National Intelligence Service targeted numerous “strategic locations” used by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party PKK, or by Syrian Kurdish militias linked to the militants, the Anadolu Agency reported. Targets included military, intelligence, energy and infrastructure facilities and ammunition depots, the report said. A security official said armed drones were used in Thursday’s attacks.

On Wednesday, the Turkish air force carried out airstrikes on similar targets in northern Syria and northern Iraq, hours after government officials blamed the PKK for the deadly attack on the headquarters of the aerospace and defense company TUSAS.

Defense Minister Yasar Guler said Thursday that 47 suspected PKK targets were destroyed in Wednesday’s airstrikes – 29 in Iraq and 18 in Syria.

“Our noble nation must rest assured that we will continue with increasing determination our struggle to eliminate the evil forces that threaten the security and peace of our country and people until the last terrorist disappears from this region,” Guler said.

The attackers – a man and a woman – arrived at the TUSAS building on the outskirts of Ankara in a taxi they commandeered after killing the driver, reports said. Armed with assault rifles, they detonated explosives and opened fire, killing four people at TUSAS, including a security personnel and a mechanical engineer.

Security teams were dispatched as soon as the attack began around 3:30 p.m., the interior minister said. The attack also killed the two attackers and injured more than twenty people.

There was no immediate statement from the PKK on the attack or the Turkish airstrikes.

In Syria, the main US-backed force said Turkish attacks in the north of the country killed 12 civilians and wounded 25.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Turkish warplanes and drones hit bakeries, power stations, oil facilities and local police checkpoints.

TUSAS designs, manufactures and assembles civil and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other defense industry and space systems. Its defense systems are considered key to Turkey gaining the upper hand in its fight against Kurdish militants.

The attack came a day after the leader of Turkey’s far-right nationalist party, which is an ally of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, raised the possibility that the PKK captured leader could be granted paroled if he renounces violence and disbands his organization.

Abdullah Ocalan, who was captured in 1999, is serving a life sentence on a prison island near Istanbul.

In a related development, his cousin Omer Ocalan announced on the social platform X that family members were allowed to visit him on Wednesday for the first time since March 2020.

Omer Ocalan, a lawmaker from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Equality and Democracy Party, also delivered a message from Abdullah Ocalan, saying he was being kept in isolation and offering to work to end the conflict “if conditions are right are.”

“I have the theoretical and practical power to (transform) this process from one based on conflict and violence to one based on law and politics,” Omer Ocalan quoted his uncle as saying.

The PKK is fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed from Beirut.