{"id":46443,"date":"2019-05-28T10:28:18","date_gmt":"2019-05-28T15:28:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46443"},"modified":"2019-05-28T10:28:21","modified_gmt":"2019-05-28T15:28:21","slug":"turkey-invades-northern-iraq-in-operation-against-kurdish-militants","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=46443","title":{"rendered":"Turkey Invades Northern Iraq In Operation Against Kurdish Militants"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.zerohedge.com\/news\/2019-05-28\/turkey-invades-northern-iraq-operation-against-kurdish-militants\">Turkey Invades Northern Iraq In Operation Against Kurdish Militants<\/a><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Turkey has launched a&nbsp;<strong>cross-border operation into neighboring Iraq<\/strong>&nbsp;against Kurdish militants in a mountainous northern region&nbsp;of the country.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The Turkish defense ministry confirmed its military unleashed a barrage of artillery fire and air strikes on Monday afternoon before ground forces&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.hurriyetdailynews.com\/armed-forces-launch-air-ground-operations-in-n-iraq-defense-ministry-143770\">entered northern Iraq to<\/a>&nbsp;\u201cdemolish the caves and shelters that are being used by terrorist groups and to eliminate terrorists\u201d&nbsp;<em>\u2014<\/em>&nbsp;a reference&nbsp;to the outlawed PKK.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/zh-prod-1cc738ca-7d3b-4a72-b792-20bd8d8fa069.storage.googleapis.com\/s3fs-public\/inline-images\/Turkey%20armor%20iraq.jpg\" alt=\"\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe operation, with the support of our attack helicopters, is continuing as planned,\u201d the statement said further. While cross-border shelling has happened somewhat frequently in the past,&nbsp;<strong>Turkey has rarely sent ground troops<\/strong>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Back in December 2015&nbsp;when Turkey, claiming&nbsp;to be engaged in counter-ISIS and general counter-insurgency operations, crossed into Iraq with a large ground force&nbsp;then Iraqi Prime Minister Haidar Abadi&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-mideast-crisis-iraq-turkey\/turkey-defends-ground-troops-in-iraq-as-war-escalates-idUSKBN0TQ0SS20151207\">demanded<\/a>&nbsp;Turkey cease violating Iraqi sovereignty, in a standoff which proved a major embarrassment for Baghdad.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Turkish state media released video footage of its operation inside Iraq:<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/trtworld\/status\/1133337224592805889\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/media\/D7psMctUIAAh_1V?format=jpg&amp;name=small\" alt=\"Embedded video\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/trtworld\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/pbs.twimg.com\/profile_images\/604916087180754945\/1aMHMBIj_normal.png\" alt=\"\"\/><\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/trtworld\"><strong><\/strong><strong>\u2714<\/strong><\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/trtworld\/status\/1133337224592805889\"><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Turkey launches a counter-terrorism operation dubbed Pence, which means claw in Turkish, , in northern Iraq <a rel=\"noreferrer noopener\" href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/zvnknaxOdk\" target=\"_blank\">https:\/\/www.trtworld.com\/article\/27052<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Not only has Turkey not been bashful about&nbsp;<strong>routinely violating the sovereignty of both Iraq and Syria<\/strong>&nbsp;ostensibly to &#8220;fight terrorists&#8221;, it has often positively boasted about it and published video footage of the incursions.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Citing the defense ministry,&nbsp;<em>Reuters&nbsp;<\/em>reports the following of the&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.reuters.com\/article\/us-turkey-iraq-security\/turkish-military-launches-operation-against-militants-in-northern-iraq-idUSKCN1SY0PM\">ongoing, controversial operation<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>It said the operation targeted Iraq\u2019s Hakurk region, just across the border from Turkey\u2019s southeastern tip, which also borders Iran. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group is based in northern Iraq, notably in the Qandil region to the south of Hakurk.<\/p><p><strong>Video published by the ministry showed helicopters landing commandos on mountainous terrain.&nbsp;<\/strong>It also shared photos showing shells fired by howitzers and soldiers perched on ridges, surveying hillsides with their rifles.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&nbsp;\u2026click on the above link to read the rest of the article\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Turkey Invades Northern Iraq In Operation Against Kurdish Militants Turkey has launched a&nbsp;cross-border operation into neighboring Iraq&nbsp;against Kurdish militants in a mountainous northern region&nbsp;of the country.&nbsp; The Turkish defense ministry confirmed its military unleashed a barrage of artillery fire and air strikes on Monday afternoon before ground forces&nbsp;entered northern Iraq to&nbsp;\u201cdemolish the caves and shelters [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[3215,442,474,3153,4318],"class_list":["post-46443","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-geopolitics","tag-invasion","tag-iraq","tag-kurds","tag-pkk","tag-zerohedge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46443","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=46443"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46443\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":46444,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/46443\/revisions\/46444"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=46443"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=46443"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=46443"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}