Two female journalists lost their lives in a Turkish airstrike that struck their vehicle in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, as stated by local officials and media outlets on Friday. The journalists, Hero Baha’uddin and Golestan Tara, were employed by a local Kurdish media company, according to reports from Roj News and an official in Sulaimaniyah province who preferred to remain anonymous.
Qubad Talabani, the deputy prime minister of the regional government in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, condemned the airstrike, emphasizing that the journalists were not linked to any armed group threatening the security or stability of any nation or region.
Reports indicated that six other journalists sustained injuries of varying degrees as a result of the airstrike.
Initially, a statement from the Kurdish region’s counter-terrorism service based in Irbil suggested that the strike targeted a car transporting members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish separatist organization with a long history of insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s and outlawed in both Turkey and Iraq.
The statement mentioned the death of a PKK official, a guard, and a driver in the strike near the village of Teperash. However, there was some confusion as to whether the two accounts referred to the same incident and if one or two cars were hit.
No immediate response was issued by Turkish authorities. Nonetheless, earlier in the day, the Turkish foreign ministry mentioned in a statement that its forces had “neutralized” 16 PKK members in other regions of northern Iraq.
The PKK has established bases in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq, prompting Turkey to increase its military presence in the area and contemplate an operation to remove PKK forces from the border regions. Turkey frequently conducts strikes against suspected PKK-affiliated targets in Syria and Iraq.
Both the airstrikes conducted by Turkey and its increased military activities in the region have been a subject of complaint by Baghdad, citing violations of its sovereignty. Despite this, Baghdad has taken a firmer stance against the PKK in recent times.