BAGHDAD: A senior military official in Baghdad said Tuesday that a drone which killed three Kurdish counterterrorism officers had originated in neighboring Turkiye, and condemned the violation of Iraq’s sovereignty.
Three members of the counterterrorism forces of Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region were killed and three wounded in Monday’s drone strike on Arbat airfield, southeast of the region’s second city of Sulaimaniyah.
Around 5 p.m. (1400 GMT) Monday, “the drone entered Iraqi airspace, crossing the border from Turkiye, and bombarded the Arbat airfield,” which is mainly used by crop-spraying aircraft, said General Yehya Rassoul, spokesman of the federal armed forces commander in chief.
“This attack constitutes a violation of Iraq’s sovereignty,” he said, adding: “Iraq reserves the right to put a stop to these violations.”
Turkiye has stepped up its drone strikes on Kurdish targets in both Iraq and Syria in recent months, although deaths among the Iraqi Kurdish security forces remain rare.
“These repeated attacks are incompatible with the principle of good neighborliness between states. They threaten to undermine Iraq’s efforts to build positive and balanced political, economic and security relations with its neighbors,” Rassoul said.
Turkish military action has principally targeted the Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) and its Syrian Kurdish ally, the People’s Defense Units (YPG).
A Turkish drone strike on Sunday killed a senior PKK official and three fighters in the Sinjar Mountains of northwestern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdish authorities said.
The United Nations mission in Iraq condemned the attack on Arbat airfield.
“Attacks repeatedly violating Iraqi sovereignty must stop,” it said. “Security concerns must be addressed through dialogue and diplomacy — not strikes.”
The Turkish army rarely comments on its strikes in Iraq but routinely conducts military operations against PKK rear-bases in autonomous Kurdistan as well as in Sinjar district.
The PKK has been waging a deadly insurgency against the Turkish state for four decades and the conflict has repeatedly spilt across the border into northern Iraq.
Turkiye operates dozens of military posts in northern Iraq under an agreement originally struck with the government of executed dictator Saddam Hussein.
In April, Baghdad accused Ankara of carrying out a “bombardment” near Sulaimaniyah airport while US soldiers and the commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, a US-backed alliance dominated by the YPG, were present.
Iraq says drone which killed three Kurdish officers came from Turkiye
https://arab.news/y2s4b
Iraq says drone which killed three Kurdish officers came from Turkiye
- One security source said initial information suggested a Turkish drone was used in the attack against a suspected Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) target
UN-sanctioned migrant smuggler killed in western Libya
- Libyan authorities report that a notorious militia leader, Ahmed Oumar Al-Fitouri Al-Dabbashi, was killed in a raid by security forces on Friday
- In 2018, the UN and US sanctioned him for controlling migrant departure areas and exposing migrants to fatal conditions
CAIRO: A notorious militia leader in Libya, sanctioned by the UN for migrant trafficking across the Mediterranean Sea, was killed on Friday in a raid by security forces in the west of the country, according to Libyan authorities.
Ahmed Oumar Al-Fitouri Al-Dabbashi, nicknamed Ammu, was killed in the western city of Sabratha when security forces raided his hideout. The raid came in response to an attack on a security outpost by Al-Dabbashi’s militia, which left six members of the security forces severely wounded, according to a statement issued by the Security Threat Enforcement Agency, a security entity affiliated with Libya’s western government.
Al-Dabbashi, who was also sanctioned by the US Treasury for trafficking, was the leader of a powerful militia, the “Brigade of the Martyr Anas Al-Dabbashi,” in Sabratha, the biggest launching point in Libya for Europe-bound African migrants.
Al-Dabbashi’s brother Saleh Al-Dabbashi, another alleged trafficker, was arrested in the same raid, added the statement.
In June 2018, the UN Security Council imposed sanctions on Al-Dabbashi, along with another five Libyan traffickers. At the time, the UN report said that there was enough evidence that Al-Dabbashi’s militia controlled departure areas for migrants, camps, safe houses and boats.
Al-Dabbashi himself exposed migrants, including children, to “fatal circumstances” on land and at sea, and of threatening peace and stability in Libya and neighboring countries, according to the same report.
Al-Dabbashi was also sanctioned by the US Treasury for the same reason.
Libya has been a main transit point for migrants fleeing war and poverty in Africa and the Middle East. The country was plunged into chaos following a NATO-backed uprising that toppled and killed longtime autocrat Muammar Qaddafi in 2011.
The country has been fragmented for years between rival administrations based in the east and the west of Libya, each backed by various armed militias and foreign governments.
