The Press Centre of the People’s Defence Forces (HPG) released a statement about the continuing guerrilla resistance against the Turkish occupation troops in the guerrilla-held Medya Defence Zones in southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq) and the attacks of the Turkish army.
According to the HPG statement on Thursday, five soldiers of the Turkish occupation troops have been killed in the past two days as the guerrillas targeted the positions and armoured vehicles of the Turkish forces. HPG stated that helicopters of the occupying Turkish army landed on the KDP outpost and retrieved the dead and wounded soldiers from the area with the help of the KDP, the ruling party in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
The statement said that the Turkish state continued to use banned weapons, while banned explosives were used 15 times and guerrilla areas were bombed 41 times by warplanes and helicopters.
Guerrilla actions in Zap and Xakurke
On the western front of the Zap region, the guerrillas struck a Turkish position in the Girê Bahar area with heavy weapons on Monday, destroying a grenade launcher. On Tuesday, a soldier was killed in the area by a guerrilla sniper. Yesterday, the occupying troops in the Girê Amêdîyê area were struck by the guerrillas with heavy weapons. On the same day, a soldier was killed by a guerrilla sniper in the Lolan area of Xakurke.
On 29 October, a Turkish unit was observed by the guerrillas in the Sergelê area in Zap and struck from the air the following day by the Şehîd Axîn Mûş guerrilla unit. Three occupiers were killed and two others injured, and their ammunition exploded. Twenty minutes later, two armoured vehicles arrived to reinforce them. They were also targeted by the guerrillas using sabotage tactics and one of the armoured vehicles was damaged.
With the help of the KDP forces, the Turkish army took their dead and wounded soldiers to a KDP outpost in Sergelê. From there, they were transported away by a military helicopter. The Sergelê area was subsequently bombed for almost an hour and a half by Turkish attack helicopters.
Attacks by the Turkish army
Regarding the attacks by the Turkish army in the last two days, HPG reported that banned explosives were used a total of fifteen times against guerrillas’ tunnels in the Lolan area in Xakurke and in Girê FM area in Zap. In addition, HPG reported 14 air strikes by fighter jets and 27 attacks by attack helicopters on various areas in the Xakurke, Gare, Metîna, Qandil and Zap regions.