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Turkey said it launched strikes on Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria Wednesday after blaming them for an attack that killed five people at a defense firm near Ankara.
A further 22 people were wounded in the attack, which the government said was “very likely” carried out by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Hours later, “an air operation was carried out against terrorist targets in the north of Iraq and Syria,” the defense ministry said in a statement.
“A total of 32 targets belonging to the terrorists were successfully destroyed,” it said, adding that operations were continuing.
Listed as a terror group by Turkey and its Western allies, the PKK has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. It has a number of rear bases in Kurdish regions of Iraq and Syria.
In the attack that sparked the strikes, a huge explosion rocked the headquarters of state-run Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) some 40 kilometers (25 miles) north of Ankara shortly after 3:30 pm.
It sent clouds of smoke into the air as the sound of gunfire rang out, Turkish media reported, with the incident quickly denounced by Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya as a “terror attack”.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was in Russia for talks with Vladimir Putin, called it a “heinous” attack on Turkey’s defense industry “targeting the survival of our country,” in a message on X.
