Erdogan Says Turkey Could Target Refugee Camp Deep Inside Iraq

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends a news conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (not pictured) in Budapest, Hungary November 7, 2019. (Reuters)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends a news conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (not pictured) in Budapest, Hungary November 7, 2019. (Reuters)
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Erdogan Says Turkey Could Target Refugee Camp Deep Inside Iraq

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends a news conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (not pictured) in Budapest, Hungary November 7, 2019. (Reuters)
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan attends a news conference with Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban (not pictured) in Budapest, Hungary November 7, 2019. (Reuters)

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned Iraq that Turkey will "clean up" a refugee camp which it says provides a safe haven for Kurdish militants, threatening to take its long military campaign deeper inside Iraqi territory.

Turkish forces have stepped up attacks on bases of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) inside northern Iraq over the last year, focusing their firepower and incursions mainly on a strip of territory up to 30 km (about 20 miles) inside Iraq.

But Erdogan said Makhmour, a camp 180 km south of the Turkish border which has hosted thousands of Turkish refugees for more than two decades, was an "incubator" for militants and must be tackled.

"If the United Nations does not clean it up, we will do it as a UN member," Erdogan said, adding that Ankara believed Makhmour posed as great a threat as the PKK's stronghold in the Qandil mountains further north.

"How long are we supposed to be patient about it?" he told Turkish state broadcaster TRT in an interview late on Tuesday.

A senior Iraqi official told Reuters that Turkey complained last week to Baghdad about "terrorist activities launched by the PKK from their camp in Makhmour against Turkey".

Security commanders and local officials investigated the Turkish complaint and told the government that the Makhmour camp was controlled by PKK fighters who did not allow access to government forces, the official said.

An Iraqi government spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The camp was established in the 1990s when thousands of Kurds from Turkey crossed the border in a movement Ankara says was deliberately provoked by the PKK.

The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by the United States and European Union, has fought an insurgency against the state in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey since 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Makhmour was targeted by Turkish air strikes a year ago, although there were no reports of casualties at the time, but a senior Turkish official said it was now a priority for Ankara.

"Makhmour camp is being used as one of the logistics centers in attacks against Turkey or the Turkish Armed Forces," the official said. "It's time now, it has to be cleansed of PKK."



Germany Hands Syrian Doctor Life for Torturing Assad Critics

Syrian doctor Alaa M., accused of crimes against humanity, arrives for his judgment in the security room of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 16 June 2025. (EPA)
Syrian doctor Alaa M., accused of crimes against humanity, arrives for his judgment in the security room of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 16 June 2025. (EPA)
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Germany Hands Syrian Doctor Life for Torturing Assad Critics

Syrian doctor Alaa M., accused of crimes against humanity, arrives for his judgment in the security room of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 16 June 2025. (EPA)
Syrian doctor Alaa M., accused of crimes against humanity, arrives for his judgment in the security room of the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt am Main, Germany, 16 June 2025. (EPA)

A Syrian doctor who had practiced in Germany was sentenced to life in prison by a German court on Monday for crimes against humanity and war crimes after he was found guilty of torturing dissidents in Syria.

The 40-year-old, identified only as Alaa M. in accordance with German privacy laws, was found guilty of killing two people and torturing another eight during his time working in Syria as a doctor at a military hospital and detention center in Homs in 2011 and 2012.

The court said his crimes were part of a systematic attack against people protesting against then-President Bashar al-Assad that precipitated the country's civil war.

Assad was toppled in December. His government denied it tortured prisoners.

Alaa M. arrived in Germany in 2015, after fleeing to Germany among a large influx of Syrian refugees, and became one of roughly 10,000 Syrian medics who helped ease acute staff shortages in the country's healthcare system.

He was arrested in June 2020, and was handed a life sentence without parole, the Higher Regional Court in Frankfurt said in a statement.

The defendant had pleaded not guilty, saying he was the target of a conspiracy.

German prosecutors have used universal jurisdiction laws that allow them to seek trials for suspects in crimes against humanity committed anywhere in the world.

They have targeted several former Syrian officials in similar cases in recent years.

The plaintiffs were supported by the European Center for Constitutional and Human Rights.

ECCHR lawyer Patrick Kroker called Monday's ruling "a further step towards a comprehensive reckoning with Assad's crimes".

Judges found that the doctor caused "considerable physical suffering" as a result of the torture inflicted on his victims, which included serious beatings, mistreating wounds and inflicting serious injury to the genitals of two prisoners, one of whom was a teenage boy.

Two patients died after he gave them lethal medication, the court statement said.

Monday's ruling can be appealed.