The Iraqi military announced it downed a Turkish drone over the northern city of Kirkuk on Thursday, as Turkey continued its operations against Kurdish militants inside Iraq. Falling debris from the drone damaged a house in the city center, though there were no direct casualties. A carpenter nearby was hospitalized after a fall caused by the incident.
General Abdel Salam Ramadan, deputy air defense commander for Kirkuk, confirmed the downing at a press conference, stating the drone had penetrated Iraqi airspace from the direction of Sulaimaniyah, a city in the Kurdish autonomous region.
Kirkuk, an ethnically mixed city with significant oil fields, is directly administered by the federal government in Baghdad, not part of the autonomous Kurdish region. Turkey has maintained military bases in northern Iraq for decades as part of its campaign against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it considers a terrorist organization.
The Iraqi government, which discreetly banned the PKK in March, recently signed a military cooperation deal with Ankara to enhance joint efforts against the militants. The PKK has waged an insurgency against Turkey since 1984 and is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by both Ankara and its Western allies.
