BAGHDAD: Two high-ranking Iraqi officers were killed on Tuesday in what the army said was a “blatant Turkish drone attack” in the autonomous Kurdish region, where Ankara has for weeks been raiding militant positions.

The strike killed two border guard battalion commanders and the driver of their vehicle, the army said in a statement.

It is the first time members of the regular Iraqi forces have been killed since Turkey launched a cross-border ground and air operation in mid-June against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels in the mountainous terrain of northern Iraq.

Iraq has already summoned the Turkish envoy in Baghdad twice in protest at Ankara’s operations on its soil.

Ihsan Chalabi, the mayor of Sidakan in the north of Arbil province, said that the drone had targeted “Iraqi border guard commanders while they were in meetings with PKK fighters”.

Published in Dawn, August 12th, 2020