ISTANBUL—Turkey has ramped up its cross-border strikes on Kurdish YPG militants in Syria and Iraq, while Iran struck dissident groups in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region last week.
Russia and the United States, both of which maintain troops in Syria, have called on Turkey to show restraint amid concern about widening conflict in the region.
Since Nov. 20, Turkish warplanes, artillery, and combat drones have pounded YPG positions in northern Syria and northern Iraq. According to Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar, more than 300 YPG militants have been “neutralized” since the strikes began last week.
Dubbed “Operation Claw-Sword,” the ongoing wave of cross-border strikes comes in response to a Nov. 13 bombing in central Istanbul that left six people dead and scores more injured.
Ankara blames the YPG, the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), for the bombing.
Based in northern Iraq’s Qandil mountain range, the PKK claims to seek the establishment of an independent Kurdish state in the region. Since its establishment in the late 1970s, the PKK has staged numerous deadly attacks on both civilian and military targets inside Turkish territory.
Turkey, a NATO member, along with the United States and the European Union, views the PKK as a terrorist group.
On Nov. 21, three people were killed by cross-border rocket attacks in Turkey’s Gaziantep province, which is located adjacent to Syria. One day earlier, eight Turkish security personnel were injured in a similar attack in the neighboring province of Kilis.
Ankara has blamed the YPG for both attacks.
Further complicating the situation, the YPG is a leading component of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). A coalition of dissident Syrian outfits, the SDF was cobbled together in 2015 with the ostensible aim of fighting the ISIS terrorist group.
The U.S.-supported SDF currently controls most of northeastern Syria, a de facto autonomous enclave also known as “Rojava” in Kurdish.
On Nov. 22, White House National Security Council spokesman John Kirby acknowledged that Turkey was facing a “legitimate terrorist threat.”
“They certainly have every right to defend themselves,” Kirby said.
But he noted that Turkey’s military response could hinder the ability of Washington’s “SDF partners”—a presumable reference to the YPG—to “continue the fight against ISIS.”
The following day, U.S. Central Command stated that U.S.-led coalition personnel had been put at risk by a Turkish drone strike near Syria’s Hasakah province, most of which is under SDF control.
Akar, for his part, dismissed claims that Turkish strikes in northern Syria posed a threat to U.S. coalition forces.
“It is out of the question for us to harm coalition forces or civilians,” he said on Nov. 24. “Where the terrorist is, that’s our target.”
On Nov. 25, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to uproot “terrorists” in both Syria and Iraq “no matter who they collude with.”
Iran Hits Targets in Iraq’s Kurdish Region
Turkey isn’t the only country carrying out cross-border strikes on Kurdish militant groups.Last week, Iran also lashed out at what it described as “separatist terrorist groups” based in northern Iraq’s autonomous Kurdish region.
On Nov. 22, the Iranian military carried out missile strikes against the Free Kurdistan Party, a dissident Iranian Kurdish group based near the Iraqi city of Kirkuk, according to Iran’s Tasnim News Agency.
Since mid-November, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps has reportedly struck multiple targets in Iraq’s Kurdish region.
On Nov. 14, two people were reportedly killed when Iran struck the headquarters of the Erbil-based Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan and the Sulaymaniyah-based Komala Party.
A similar series of strikes in late September killed 13 people near Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, according to reports in Iraqi state media.
Iraq’s Foreign Ministry has condemned the attacks, stating that they constituted violations of the country’s sovereignty.
Tehran, for its part, has accused groups based in Iraq’s Kurdish region of “fomenting unrest” in Iranian cities located near the Iraqi border.
For the past two months, Iran has been roiled by violent anti-government protests.
Much of the unrest has been in the country’s northwest, where most of Iran’s roughly 10 million Kurds are concentrated.
The protests first erupted on Sept. 16, when Mahsa Amini—a 22-year-old woman from the majority-Kurdish city of Saqqez—died in police custody.
Iranian officials claim that the ongoing unrest is being stoked by external enemies, including the United States and Israel, which they accuse of actively working to destabilize the country.
On Nov. 23, Iranian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian said foreign attempts to “foment civil war” in Iran—with the ultimate aim of partitioning the country—had “failed.”
He went on to assert that Iran possessed documents confirming that “Western countries” were “fomenting riots.”
While Amir-Abdollahian didn’t name the countries involved in the alleged plot, he claimed that the same forces had also armed “terrorists” based in Iraq’s Kurdish region.
According to the foreign minister, Baghdad has pledged to deploy Iraqi troops along the Kurdish region’s border with Iran but has yet to make good on the promise.
“The [Iranian] diplomatic and security apparatus will continue talks with the Iraqi authorities,” he was quoted as saying by Iran’s Mehr News Agency.
