On Sunday Turkish troops set up checkpoints in the south east of the country following a car bombing of a military vehicle in which two Turkish soldiers were killed and four others were wounded.
Kurdish PKK rebels are thought to have been responsible for the roadside attack. ( Kurdistan Workers Party).
Turkey’s simultaneous targeting of ISIL and the PKK is said by Ankara to be part of a campaign that will help create safe zones against extremists. But residents in northern Iraq where the rebel camps of the PKK are located have expressed concern.
“Yesterday, at about 11pm, Turkish fighter jets came and hit our village with 10 rockets. We and our children were really scared. They even bombed our water supply,” said one man who lives in the village of Amadiya in northern Iraq.
The lapse into serious conflict between Turkey and the PKK has raised doubts about the future of peace efforts with Turkey’s own Kurdish foes that started in 2012 after 28 years of bloodshed, but which have recently stalled.
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