On Sunday, a Turkish drone attack in northern Iraq killed at least four members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), according to officials in the autonomous Kurdistan region.

“A senior official from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party and three fighters were killed when a Turkish army drone targeted their vehicle in the Jal Mir region of Mount Sinjar,” claimed Iraqi Kurdistan’s counter-terrorism services.

For four decades, the PKK has waged a deadly insurgency against the Turkish state, and the fighting has frequently spilled over into northern Iraq.

The Turkish army seldom talks on its operations in Iraq, but it regularly conducts military operations against PKK rear locations in autonomous Kurdistan and the Sinjar province.

The PKK is classified as a “terrorist” group by Ankara and its Western backers.

Sinjar, the Yazidi minority’s homeland, is also home to the Sinjar Resistance Units, a local Yazidi organisation connected with the PKK.

They verified the killing of “three of our comrades” after a drone strike, which they claim to Turkey, struck their car on Sunday.

Ankara has set up dozens of military bases in Iraqi Kurdistan over the past 25 years to fight against the group.

At the end of August, seven PKK members were killed in northern Iraq in two drone strikes that coincided with a visit by Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, to Iraq.

Both the federal authorities and the Kurdistan regional government have been accused of tolerating Turkey’s military activities to preserve their close economic ties.

Although statements from Baghdad occasionally condemn Turkey’s violation of Iraqi sovereignty and the impact of the strikes on civilians.

In the summer of 2022, strikes attributed to Ankara on a tourist resort in northern Iraq killed nine people, mainly vacationers from the country’s south. Turkey denied any responsibility and accused the PKK of the attack.