In a series of fresh air strikes, Turkiye targeted nearly 500 Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria.
In a statement, Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar said on Wednesday that the Turkish military targets nearly 500 Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria as part of a drive of air strikes called Operation Claw-Sword.
“He said that so far 471 targets had been hit and 254 terrorists had been neutralized in the operation.
The official Anadolu news agency said that Ankara began the air strikes as part of Operation Claw-Sword.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan earlier threatened to launch a ground operation in Syria with tanks and soldiers in defiance of international pressure against it.
Istanbul bombing
Turkiye’s air strikes followed a bombing in Istanbul on November 13, which killed at least six people and injured 81.
Like in the past, Turkey blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (KWP), which is blacklisted as a terror group by both the European Union and the United States of America.
The PKK which has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984 denied any role in the bombing, which was the deadliest in five years followed by a spate of attacks in Turkiye between 2015 and 2017.
