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Kurdish Attack Kills Two Turkish Soldiers in Northern Iraq

Turkish army tanks are seen during a military exercise near the Turkish-Iraqi border in Silopi, Turkey, September 18, 2017. Mehmet Selim Yalcin/Dogan News Agency, DHA via REUTERS
Turkish army tanks are seen during a military exercise near the Turkish-Iraqi border in Silopi, Turkey, September 18, 2017. Mehmet Selim Yalcin/Dogan News Agency, DHA via REUTERS
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Kurdish Attack Kills Two Turkish Soldiers in Northern Iraq

Turkish army tanks are seen during a military exercise near the Turkish-Iraqi border in Silopi, Turkey, September 18, 2017. Mehmet Selim Yalcin/Dogan News Agency, DHA via REUTERS
Turkish army tanks are seen during a military exercise near the Turkish-Iraqi border in Silopi, Turkey, September 18, 2017. Mehmet Selim Yalcin/Dogan News Agency, DHA via REUTERS

Two Turkish soldiers were killed and another was wounded after Kurdish fighters fired rockets at a military base in northern Iraq, Turkey's Defense Ministry said in a statement on Friday.

Turkey has regularly attacked the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), both in its mainly Kurdish southeast and in northern Iraq, where the group is based.

The ministry said "harassment fire" by rocket launchers on Thursday killed the two troops at one of Turkey's bases in neighboring Iraq.

In June, Ankara launched a new ground offensive, dubbed Operation Claw-Tiger, that saw Turkish troops advance deeper into Iraq, Reuters reported.

In a separate statement, the Interior Ministry said 71 PKK militants had been killed since July 13 as part of a series of operations within Turkey, dubbed the "Lightning Operations", and added 38 collaborators had also been captured.

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the European Union, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict focused in southeast Turkey.

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Arab World

Tensions Rise between Militias in Western Libya

Members of the security forces deployed in Tripoli, Libya. (EPA)
Members of the security forces deployed in Tripoli, Libya. (EPA)
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Tensions Rise between Militias in Western Libya

Members of the security forces deployed in Tripoli, Libya. (EPA)
Members of the security forces deployed in Tripoli, Libya. (EPA)

Tensions are rising between rival militias in western Libya, with fears that the country could be dragged into an “imminent civil war.”

Armed factions were amassing forces in the western city of Misrata towards the capital Tripoli, while an armed convoy was seen headed towards the Salaheddine area in Tripoli.

Residents of Tripoli's Arba and Souq al-Jumaa districts met with the leaders of armed factions to urge them to bolster their security presence and take preemptive measures to confront the military mobilization.

They stressed the need to counter any threats and block attempts to undermine security.

The Tripoli Protection Force strongly warned members of rival armed factions, including those loyal to the Government of National Unity (GNU), such as Defense Ministry Undersecretary Abdulsalam al-Zoubi, against dragging the capital into a “futile war”.

It accused them of seeking to achieve their “corrupt agendas and seizing power over the blood of the innocents,” vowing that it “won’t allow anyone to meddle with the stability of the capital and threaten the lives of its people.”

It vowed a “violent and unprecedented retaliation to any military advance on Tripoli,” pledging to protect the people “until the last bullet.” It held the GNU and other parties involved “fully responsible for an escalation because of their open or implicit support of these gangs.”

Leaders of revolutionaries brigades in Misrata declared on Saturday their categorical rejection of the Misrata Joint Force towards Tripoli. It accused head of the GNU, Abdulhamid al-Dbeibah, of ordering the mobilization.

They described the mobilization as a “stab in the back to the nation and an attempt to spark a civil war that only serves the enemies of the Libyan people.”

Dbeibah’s “suspicious silence is evidence of treason being plotted” in Tripoli, they added in a statement.

“Any attempt to undermine the security of the capital will be met with fire,” it went on to say, accusing Dbeibah of “selling out the nation” to foreign powers and of working with “suspicious alliances to control the capital and extend his rule by force.”