Tit For Tat

Turkey launched airstrikes on Syria and Iraq Thursday, targeting suspected Kurdish militants based there whom it blames for a deadly attack on the headquarters of its national aerospace company earlier this week, the Guardian reported.

The country’s National Intelligence Organization said its strikes targeted numerous “strategic locations” used by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or the affiliated Syrian Kurdish militia, with targets including military, intelligence, ammunition, and energy and infrastructure facilities.

Turkey suspects the PKK was behind the violent attack on the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAS) headquarters on the outskirts of the capital Ankara that killed five people and injured 22 others Wednesday, reported CNN.

The attack involved a man and a woman armed with assault rifles, who arrived at the headquarters in a taxi after killing its driver. The pair ignited explosives and opened fire at the facility, killing four more people. The two assailants were killed after security teams were dispatched to the location.

Turkey’s retaliation for the “terror attack” killed 12 civilians, including two children, and wounded 25 others, in northern and eastern Syria.

“In addition to populated areas, Turkish warplanes and UAVs (drones) targeted bakeries, power stations, oil facilities and (Kurdish) Internal Security Force checkpoints,” the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Defense Force said in a statement on Thursday. Similar airstrikes also occurred in northern Iraq, with 30 targets being destroyed in the aerial offensive, the Turkish defense ministry reported.

TUSAS manufactures defense industry systems, and its technology is credited with giving Turkey the upper hand in its battle against the Kurds.

The attack on TUSAS came a day after the head of a far-right nationalist party in Turkey (MHP), Devlet Bahçeli, raised the possibility of granting the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, parole if he renounced violence and disbanded the PKK.

This unexpected announcement came as Bahçeli’s ally, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, is seeking political support from the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party (DEM), according to Euronews. Erdoğan, who has been in power since 2003 as prime minister and later president, needs to implement constitutional changes to run for office again.

The PKK, considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies, has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s, a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people.