Turkey launches retaliation missile strikes

Turkey has begun 'retaliation' missile strikes in Northern Syria and Iraq, after a bomb attack in Istanbul last week killed six people. 

Credit: anews.com. 

By: Sam Feierabend.

The target for the bombings has been against Kurdish militant bases and have killed 11 civilians, including a journalist say the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The SDF are led by militants from Kurdistan, the long-debated region that covers Northern Iraq and Syria. Kurdish people have long been targeted by others, including ISIS and Al-Assad's Syrian army. 

Despite claiming no responsibility, the SDF have seemingly been the target for Turkish counter strikes which have been carried out as retaliation. Last Sunday (13 November), a bomb set off in central Istanbul killed six people and injured another 80.

The Turkish ministry of defence has called this offensive Operation Claw Sword, which is claimed to only be targeting terrorist organisations and structures belonging to terrorists. 

Those targeted are allegedly the outlawed groups, The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia. Both these groups form the backbone of the SDF.

The SDF say that the strikes were aimed at their civilians with a hospital and a media centre being destroyed as a result. 

The PKK are considered a terrorist group by the EU and the USA but have denied any involvement in the Istanbul bombing saying that they would not target civilians. They have led multiple insurgencies against Turkey and the West since the invasion of Iraq in 2003, with their overarching aim being the creation of an independent Kurdish stage in southeast Turkey. 

The West allied with Kurdish fighters in their fight against ISIS in the mid-2010s, causing tension with Turkey as they claimed this was just arming people with terrorist connections.

An already complicated and fragile region of the Middle East could spark into broader conflict once again, if a large power such as Turkey continue aggression into the region.