Three Yazidi fighters killed in Turkish drone strike in Iraq
QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – Three fighters from the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) killed on Monday by a Turkish drone strike in northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan’s counterterrorism service said.
A Turkish drone strike at around 09:10 GMT hit the vehicle carrying YBS members, including a local commander and two fighters, in the Yazidi-majority district of Sinjar (Shingal), the service stated.
The YBS, which is a predominantly Yazidi force, was formed in 2014 to drive out ISIS members from the area after the withdrawal of the Iraqi army. Since then, it has remained a powerful local force in the area.
Sinjar (Shengal in Kurdish) is run by an autonomous administration affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) as Turkey claims. The area has its own military body called Shingal Protection Units (YBS in Kurdish).
Turkey regularly carries out attacks on the northern areas of the Kurdistan region, as well as it carries out from time to time air strikes air in Iraq, most of which are concentrated in the areas of Shengal and Makhmur camp in Nineveh Governorate.
On May 1, 2022 Sinjar District witnessed tension on the back of the deployment of Iraqi military units in different areas especially in the vicinity of Snuny, north of Sinjar Mountain.
The aim of deploying Iraqi military units was to impose military control over the area, remove barriers set up by the YBS, and remove the armed groups, according to a security agreement signed between Baghdad and Erbil in 2020.
Residents of the Yazidi majority Sinjar region, which is located on border with Syria, went through disastrous massacres at hands of the Islamic State (ISIS) in 2014.