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Iran Joins Turkey in Carrying out Strikes on Iraqi Territories

A Turkish F-16 fighter jet takes off from Incirlik airbase in the southern city of Adana, Turkey, July 27, 2015. (Reuters)
A Turkish F-16 fighter jet takes off from Incirlik airbase in the southern city of Adana, Turkey, July 27, 2015. (Reuters)
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Iran Joins Turkey in Carrying out Strikes on Iraqi Territories

A Turkish F-16 fighter jet takes off from Incirlik airbase in the southern city of Adana, Turkey, July 27, 2015. (Reuters)
A Turkish F-16 fighter jet takes off from Incirlik airbase in the southern city of Adana, Turkey, July 27, 2015. (Reuters)

Iran joined Turkey in carrying out airstrikes against Iraqi territories in the northern Kurdistan Region.

Turkish fighter jets struck on Sunday night Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq, destroying “terrorist” hideouts. It carried out 81 attacks against PKK targets in the Sinjar region and nearby areas as part of Operation Claw-Eagle.

Ankara carried out even more attacks on Wednesday. Its Defense Ministry announced that warplanes struck Kurdish militant targets in northern Iraq’s Haftanin region.

“In order to neutralize the PKK and other terrorist elements threatening our people and our borders, our Air Force, along with fire-support equipment, helicopters and our commandos, supported by armed and unarmed drones, have mobilized to the region with air operations,” the ministry said in a tweet.

Turkey regularly targets PKK militants, both in its mainly Kurdish southeast and in northern Iraq, where the group is based. The two latest airstrikes come amid what Ankara alleges is an increase in militant attacks on Turkish army bases.

Kurdish sources revealed that Turkey has even cooperated with Iran’s Revolutionary Guards Corps in striking the region. The Rudaw news agency reported that strikes targeted the heights of Baraskan in the village of Alana. No human losses were reported.

Security sources said Iranian forces shelled border regions, wounding several farmers.

Tehran has justified its attacks against Kurdish regions in Iraq saying it is targeting the Iranian Kurdish opposition that operates within Iraqi territories.

The joint operations command in Iraq slammed Turkey’s violations earlier this week, saying such acts are a flagrant violation of Iraqi sovereignty, good neighborliness and international agreements.

It called on Ankara against launching such attacks again and committing any other violations, saying it must respect the common interests of both countries.

Iraq said it was prepared to cooperate with Turkey over securing their joint borders.

Leading member of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Rashad Galali described as “shameful” Turkey’s repeated attacks on Iraqi territory that have been met with no deterrent response from the federal government.

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Arab World

Civilians Pay a Heavy Price as War in Lebanon Drives Death, Displacement, UN Says

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
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Civilians Pay a Heavy Price as War in Lebanon Drives Death, Displacement, UN Says

Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 17, 2026. (AFP)
Smoke rises from the site of an Israeli airstrike that targeted an area in Beirut's southern suburbs on March 17, 2026. (AFP)

Civilians are paying a heavy price as the war in Lebanon continues to expand, driving death, injuries and displacement the United Nations said on Tuesday.

"Displacement is increasing incredibly quickly. Right ‌now, hundreds of ‌thousands of people ‌left ⁠their homes. Many ⁠leaving with very little, just the clothes they were wearing," said the UN Humanitarian Coordinator Imran Riza.

Lebanon was sucked ⁠into the war in ‌the ‌Middle East on March 2 when ‌Hezbollah opened fire at ‌Israel, saying it aimed to avenge the killing of Iran's supreme leader. Israel has responded ‌with an offensive that has killed more ⁠than ⁠800 people in Lebanon and forced more than 800,000 from their homes.

Almost a fifth of people living in Lebanon are now registered as displaced, according to Lebanese government figures, with displacement set to increase, the UN said.

Israeli air strikes on residential buildings in Lebanon raise concerns under international law, the human ‌rights ‌office said ‌on ⁠Tuesday said.

"Israeli air ⁠strikes have destroyed entire residential buildings in dense ⁠urban environments with ‌multiple ‌members of the ‌same family, ‌including women and children often killed together," ‌UN human rights office spokesperson ⁠Thameen Al-Kheetan ⁠told reporters in Geneva.

"Such attacks raise concerns under international humanitarian law," he added.

Arab World

Lebanese Army Says Five Soldiers Wounded in Israeli Strike in South Lebanon

17 March 2026, Lebanon, Khiam: Smoke rises over Khiam, a southern Lebanese village roughly 6 km from the Israeli border, after Hezbollah missile strikes targeted advancing Israeli troops. (dpa)
17 March 2026, Lebanon, Khiam: Smoke rises over Khiam, a southern Lebanese village roughly 6 km from the Israeli border, after Hezbollah missile strikes targeted advancing Israeli troops. (dpa)
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Lebanese Army Says Five Soldiers Wounded in Israeli Strike in South Lebanon

17 March 2026, Lebanon, Khiam: Smoke rises over Khiam, a southern Lebanese village roughly 6 km from the Israeli border, after Hezbollah missile strikes targeted advancing Israeli troops. (dpa)
17 March 2026, Lebanon, Khiam: Smoke rises over Khiam, a southern Lebanese village roughly 6 km from the Israeli border, after Hezbollah missile strikes targeted advancing Israeli troops. (dpa)

Five ‌Lebanese soldiers were wounded, two critically, in an Israeli air strike in the city of Nabatieh in southern Lebanon, the Lebanese army said on Tuesday, amid escalating hostilities between Israel and Iran-backed armed group Hezbollah.

The soldiers, struck while travelling by car ‌and motorcycle, were ‌taken to hospital, ‌it ⁠said in a ⁠post on X.

The strike comes amid intensifying Israeli attacks across Lebanon, which have killed more than 880 people and displaced over a million, according to ⁠Lebanese authorities.

The Lebanese army ‌has also ‌reported casualties in recent days, including ‌an incident earlier this month ‌in which three soldiers were among those killed in Israeli strikes, according to the army.

Israel's military, which has ‌occupied five positions in southern Lebanon since a November ⁠2024 ⁠ceasefire with Hezbollah, sent additional forces into the country after the group fired a salvo of rockets on March 2, dragging Lebanon into the expanding US-Israeli war with Iran.

Israel's Defense Minister Israel Katz has warned Lebanon that it could face territorial losses unless Hezbollah was disarmed.

Arab World

Iraq in Talks with Iran to Safeguard Oil Tanker Traffic Through Hormuz

Vehicles enter and exit an underpass road during rainfall in Baghdad on March 15, 2026. (AFP)
Vehicles enter and exit an underpass road during rainfall in Baghdad on March 15, 2026. (AFP)
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Iraq in Talks with Iran to Safeguard Oil Tanker Traffic Through Hormuz

Vehicles enter and exit an underpass road during rainfall in Baghdad on March 15, 2026. (AFP)
Vehicles enter and exit an underpass road during rainfall in Baghdad on March 15, 2026. (AFP)

Iraq's oil minister said Baghdad is talking to Iran about allowing some of the country's oil tankers to pass through the Strait of Hormuz, the state news agency reported on Tuesday, as Iraq seeks to ease disruptions to crude exports following recent attacks on tankers in its own waters.

Iraq is also working to restore a disused pipeline that would allow oil to be pumped directly ‌to Türkiye's ‌Ceyhan port without passing through the ‌Kurdistan ⁠region, Oil Minister ⁠Hayan Abdel-Ghani said in a video statement released on Monday.

Iraq will complete an inspection of a 100-km (62-mile) section of the pipeline within a week to enable direct exports from Kirkuk, he added.

The reopening of the Kirkuk-Ceyhan pipeline, which has been shut for ⁠more than a decade, would offer ‌an alternative export route ‌at a time when shipping through the strategic Strait ‌of Hormuz is severely disrupted by the conflict ‌in the Middle East.

Exports via the 960-km pipeline, which once handled about 0.5% of global supply, were halted in 2014 after repeated attacks by ISIS militants.

The ‌oil ministry has said exports via the route could initially reach around 250,000 ⁠barrels ⁠per day, rising to about 450,000 bpd of crude from fields in the Kurdistan region is included.

Baghdad has sought to use the Kurdistan pipeline as a temporary route for crude flows but said the Kurdistan Regional Government had set arbitrary conditions for its use, warning it may take legal action if exports are blocked.

Kurdish authorities have rejected the accusations, saying they are not obstructing exports and that Baghdad has failed to address security and economic challenges facing the region’s oil sector.