Turkey strikes targets in Iraq after suicide bombing in Ankara committed by the PKK

 

Turkish police in Ankara. ABC News/AP.

Turkey has struck several targets in Iraq after a suicide bombing in Ankara claimed by the Kurdish communist group PKK. ABC News. 20 targets were reported destroyed and many PKK militants were reported eliminated by the Turks. The attacks were in response to a terror attack in Ankara that mostly failed. Two police officers were wounded by the first bomber but a second bomber was shot and killed by police. The two bombers had stolen a commercial vehicle from a veterinarian they murdered. The PKK has been designated a terror group and is one of the few non-religious groups to use suicide bombings. The group supports socialism and Kurdish nationalism. 

My Comment:

It's pretty obvious that this terror attack failed and failed pretty bad. Imagine killing yourself to slightly wound a couple of cops. But that's still better than the other guy did, getting killed in a shootout with the cops and failing hard. They managed to murder an innocent veterinarian to steal his truck though, so I guess that is something. 

There isn't a whole lot of information about how effective these strikes are or what aircraft Turkey used. They have F-16's and attack helicopters but that is just speculation. They claim to have hit 20 sites and to have killed some Kurds but it's unclear if that is true and if the Kurds had anything to do with the terror attack. 

Indeed, it sounds like the Turks were attacking YPG, which is a separate group than PKK that Turkey conflates for political reasons. To be fair to the Turks, the two groups are allies and have fought with each other against Turkey several times. But I seriously doubt that the YPG people had anything to do with the terror attack in Ankara today. 

Turkey's war with the Kurds has obviously fallen into the background internationally as Ukraine has totally supplanted the conflict in Syria. But it's still a hot conflict and Turkey is up against a group that regularly kills civilians and uses suicide bombings to try and  gain independence. Turkey isn't innocent in the conflict either, far from it, but that's typical in cases of war. Indeed, Turkey can be pretty racist against minority groups in their country and the Kurds are no exception. 

The conflict also has wider implications for Europe given the fact that Turkey does not like any country that supports the Kurds. This has caused a lot of tension in NATO as many European countries helped the Kurds during the war. This attack is pretty minor in the scheme of things but it may increase these tensions...