Three Yazidi fighters, including a local chief of Iraq's powerful Hashed al-Shaabi coalition, were killed Monday in a Turkish air strike on northwest Iraq, a security source said.

The source, speaking to AFP on condition of anonymity, said Hassan Saeed died along with two comrades as their car was hit on the road to Sinjar, the heartland of Iraq's Yazidi religious minority.

Saeed headed the Sinjar Resistance Units, set up in 2014 to protect the Yazidis from the Islamic State (IS) group before being integrated into the mainly pro-Iranian Hashed.

His force is seen as close to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), a group outlawed in Turkey that has rear bases in northern Iraq.

The PKK has since 1984 waged a rebellion in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

Turkish forces routinely conduct operations against PKK bases in the rugged mountains of northern Iraq.

In its latest losses, Ankara said Monday that four Turkish soldiers were killed in two separate incidents in northern Iraq over the weekend.

Before they were targeted by IS, around 550,000 Yazidis had been living in Iraq's rugged northwest, concentrated around Sinjar.

But in 2014, the jihadists swept through Sinjar and, branding the Yazidis as infidels, killed the men, took boys as child soldiers and forced women into sexual slavery.

Several thousand Yazidis were killed and nearly 100,000 fled abroad. Some 360,000 remain displaced in the autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.

Related Links
Iraq: The first technology war of the 21st century

Tweet

Thanks for being here; We need your help. The SpaceDaily news network continues to grow but revenues have never been harder to maintain. With the rise of Ad Blockers, and Facebook - our traditional revenue sources via quality network advertising continues to decline. And unlike so many other news sites, we don't have a paywall - with those annoying usernames and passwords. Our news coverage takes time and effort to publish 365 days a year. If you find our news sites informative and useful then please consider becoming a regular supporter or for now make a one off contribution.
SpaceDaily Contributor $5 Billed Once credit card or paypal		SpaceDaily Monthly Supporter $5 Billed Monthly paypal only

Murder of city official fuels anger over Iraq impunity
Karbala, Iraq (AFP) Aug 11, 2021
The gunning down in the street of a municipal official in the Iraqi shrine city of Karbala sparked anger Wednesday over the government's failure to halt a wave of assassinations. Abir Salim, the director of municipal services in the city which houses the mausoleums of two of Shiite Islam's most revered figures, was shot dead as he was carrying out his duties on Tuesday, Prime Minister Mustafa al-Kadhemi's office said. He was on foot supervising a survey of unauthorised construction in Karbala wh ... read more