A Turkish air strike on a north Iraq village killed seven civilians on Sunday, an official from the area told AFP, during a bombing campaign against Kurdish separatists in the region. “Seven people, including women and children, were killed by a Turkish air strike against a civilian car in Kortek village” in Iraq’s autonomous Kurdistan region, said Hassan Abdullah, the mayor of the Qalat Dizah area. Abdullah added that it is difficult to determine the exact toll from the strike, as the car and its passengers were torn apart by the explosion.
Sunday is the fifth straight day that Turkish jets bombed Kurdistan, and the first time that civilian or other casualties have been reported. The Turkish military launched a first wave of bomb attacks on Wednesday against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in Iraq after a deadly attack by the rebel group against a military unit in Cukurca town in southeast Turkey that killed nine security personnel. The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms in the Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.