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Turkey Says 13 of its Citizens Killed by PKK in N.Iraq

Troops have found the bodies of 13 Turkish citizens abducted by Kurdish insurgents in a cave complex in northern Iraq. (Reuters file photo)
Troops have found the bodies of 13 Turkish citizens abducted by Kurdish insurgents in a cave complex in northern Iraq. (Reuters file photo)
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Turkey Says 13 of its Citizens Killed by PKK in N.Iraq

Troops have found the bodies of 13 Turkish citizens abducted by Kurdish insurgents in a cave complex in northern Iraq. (Reuters file photo)
Troops have found the bodies of 13 Turkish citizens abducted by Kurdish insurgents in a cave complex in northern Iraq. (Reuters file photo)

Troops have found the bodies of 13 Turkish citizens abducted by Kurdish insurgents in a cave complex in northern Iraq, the Turkish defense minister said Sunday.

Hulusi Akar said 12 of the victims were shot in the head and one died of a shoulder bullet wound. They were discovered in the Gara region near the Turkish border during an operation against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, launched on Feb. 10.

Operation Claw-Eagle 2 led to the deaths of 48 PKK militants, including three senior members, and the capture of two insurgents, Akar said.

Chief of General Staff Gen. Yasar Guler said the operation covered an area of 75 kilometers by 25 kilometers (47 miles by 15 miles), one of the largest areas to be targeted in recent campaigns against the PKK.

“In searches of a cave, which was taken under control after intense clashes, the bodies of 13 of our abducted citizens were found,” Akar said from an operations center in Sirnak on the Turkish side of the border.

The victims had been killed at the start of the operation to seize the cave complex, Akar said, adding that “all the terrorists in the cave… have been neutralized.”

The identity of the Turkish citizens was not initially revealed and Akar said their kidnapping had not previously been disclosed due to security reasons.

The 13 bodies were flown to the central Turkish city of Malatya, where a prosecutor will oversee an investigation.

Malatya Governor Aydin Barus later said 10 of the dead had been identified and named them as soldiers or police officers, as well as two civilians, kidnapped inside Turkey in the last six years.

In a statement carried by the PKK-linked Firat news agency, the PKK said “prisoners of war” consisting of members of the Turkish security forces and intelligence agency were killed as a result of Turkey's attack.

Turkish officials said the underground cave system, which had three entrances and nine separate chambers, was manned by ten insurgents, two of whom were captured before the cave was stormed by Turkish troops.

Ammunition stores and PKK bases in the mountainous region were destroyed in the operation, which deployed air strikes and helicopter-borne soldiers. The PKK uses bases in northern Iraq to launch cross-border attacks against Turkey.

Three Turkish troops died during the operation and three others were wounded, Akar said.

Ruling party spokesman Omer Celik said the hostage killings were “an attack on all humanity” while Devlet Bahceli, who leads a nationalist party allied to the government, described the incident as “like a fireball that has crashed on the nation's hearts.”

Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu offered his condolences to those killed by the “treacherous terrorist organization”.

Tens of thousands of people have been killed since the PKK, which is designated a terrorist organization by the US and European Union, began an insurgency in Turkey’s majority Kurdish southeast region in 1984.

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Report: Airlines Fly Over Afghanistan as Mideast Becomes the Greater Risk

A wing of an Airbus A-320 aircraft of British Airways is pictured above northern France during a Geneva to London Heathrow flight, August 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
A wing of an Airbus A-320 aircraft of British Airways is pictured above northern France during a Geneva to London Heathrow flight, August 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
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Report: Airlines Fly Over Afghanistan as Mideast Becomes the Greater Risk

A wing of an Airbus A-320 aircraft of British Airways is pictured above northern France during a Geneva to London Heathrow flight, August 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse
A wing of an Airbus A-320 aircraft of British Airways is pictured above northern France during a Geneva to London Heathrow flight, August 7, 2024. REUTERS/Denis Balibouse

Singapore Airlines, British Airways and Lufthansa have increased their flights over Afghanistan after years of largely avoiding it now the Middle East conflict has made it seem a relatively safe option, Reuters reported.
The carriers mostly stopped transiting Afghanistan, which lies on major routes between Asia and Europe, three years ago when the Taliban took over and air traffic control services stopped.
Those services have yet to resume, but airlines increasingly consider the skies between Iran and Israel are riskier than Afghan airspace. Many had started routing through Iran and the Middle East after Russian skies were closed to most western carriers when the Ukraine war began in 2022.
"As conflicts have evolved, the calculus of which airspace to use has changed. Airlines are seeking to mitigate risk as much as possible and they see overflying Afghanistan as the safer option given the current tensions between Iran and Israel," Ian Petchenik, a spokesperson for flight tracking organization Flightradar24, said.
There were more than seven times the number of flights over Afghanistan in the second week of August than during the same period a year ago, according to a Reuters analysis of FlightRadar24 data.
The shift began in mid-April during reciprocal missile and drone attacks between Iran and Israel. Flight tracking data from the time shows Lufthansa, Singapore Airlines, British Airways and others began to send a few flights a day over Afghanistan.
But the main growth has been since the killing of senior members of Hamas and Hezbollah in late July raised concerns of a major escalation.
Some pilots are concerned.
"You're depending on the analysis of your airline. Every time I fly out there, I don't like the feeling of flying over a conflict area where you don't know, actually, what is happening," said Otjan de Bruin, a commercial pilot and head of the European Cockpit Association.
"It's always safe enough, until proven otherwise."
Lufthansa Group told Reuters it decided to resume overflying Afghan airspace from early July.
Other carriers that have increased overflights since April include Turkish Airlines, Thai Airways and the Air France-KLM group, data shows.
"Based on actual security information, KLM and other airlines currently safely overfly Afghanistan only on specific routes and only at high altitudes," KLM told Reuters.
British Airways, Thai Airways, Turkish Airlines and Singapore Airlines did not respond to requests for comment.
Taiwan's EVA Air began from late July, flight tracking data shows. EVA told Reuters it chooses routes based on safety, the current international situation and flight advisories.
REGULATION'S ROLE
The route changes have been facilitated by aviation regulators easing guidance on Afghanistan.
The US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in early July said planes could fly at a lower altitude over a sliver of north-eastern Afghanistan, the Wakhan Corridor, which is used to cross from Tajikistan to Pakistan - opening that path to more types of flights.
A year earlier, the FAA lifted its ban on overflights for the entire country, but said planes must stay above 32,000 feet (9,753.6 m) where surface-to-air weapons are considered less effective.
But few started using Afghanistan until April.
Although more traffic has been using the airspace without incident, there is no guarantee of crew or passenger safety if a plane has to land, flight safety group OPSGROUP said in July.
In the absence of air traffic control, pilots crossing Afghanistan talk to nearby planes over radio according to a protocol drawn up by UN aviation body ICAO and Afghanistan's Civil Aviation Authority.
European aviation safety regulator EASA said in a conflict-zone information bulletin re-issued in July that "extremist non-state actor groups remain active and might sporadically target aviation facilities in multiple ways."
The industry is haunted by the memory of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur, which was shot down over eastern Ukraine in 2014, as fighting raged between pro-Russian separatists and Ukrainian forces.
COST AND LIMITED CHOICE
Airlines are under pressure to save money after the loss since 2022 of many shorter paths through Russian airspace, and as they re-build from the pandemic.
There are few international rules that dictate which areas of airspace are safe and airline safety decisions are left largely to the discretion of individual carriers.
If an airline cannot fly through Russia, Ukraine or Iran, central Afghanistan offers a more direct route into southern Asia from Europe.
"This route saved us a fair chunk of time and fuel," OPSGROUP reported from a pilot in July who flew from Amsterdam to Kuala Lumpur across central Afghanistan.