The Turkish air force carried out a series of airstrikes on Kurdish rebels in Syria and Iraq on April 25, highlighting Turkey's intent to continue weakening the Kurdish forces it opposes beyond its borders — despite last month's formal end of its offensive in Syria, named Operation Euphrates Shield. In Syria, the Turks targeted a Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) headquarters on Mount Karachok, near the Iraqi border. The Turkish air force also struck what Ankara claims were positions held by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) — a Turkey-based Kurdish militant group with links to the YPG — in the volatile Sinjar region of Iraq. In recent months, Turkey has repeatedly denounced what it claims is a growing PKK presence in Sinjar and has vowed to dislodge the rebels from the area. The strikes were Turkey's first in Sinjar.
After successfully wresting the Syrian city of al-Bab from the Islamic State in February — and, as a result, preventing predominantly Kurdish rebel forces in Kobani and Afrin cantons from linking up — the Turks wanted to expand operations east to the YPG-held city of Manbij. But their advance on the city was blocked by the presence of Russian and U.S. forces in the area. This brought about a formal end to Operation Euphrates Shield in Syria on March 29, but Ankara was by no means willing to discontinue all efforts against Kurdish rebels.
Thus, Turkey's main focus has turned toward northern Iraq. Ankara has reached out to Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) President Massoud Barzani in an effort to weaken the PKK presence in Sinjar, where the rebels have worked to cultivate an alliance with the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS), a predominantly ethnic Yazidi militia. To that end, Ankara has sought Barzani's help in dispatching the Rojava Peshmerga (a force made up of Syrian Kurdish fighters backed by Barzani and trained by Turkish troops at northern Iraq's Bashiqa camp) to the area around Sinjar, where they clashed with the YBS in early March. An uneasy standoff between the Rojava Peshmerga and the YBS has continued ever since.
The April 25 airstrikes are but the latest in a series of moves that underscore Turkey's continued determination to pursue its campaign against the PKK and its allies, despite the setbacks Ankara has faced recently in Syria. Reports also increasingly suggest that Turkey is marshaling additional forces across from the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad, as well as close to the Iraqi border. However, if Turkish forces do cross en masse to pursue the YPG in Syria, or even if Turkey sends a substantial force to Sinjar, they will quickly find themselves not only fighting the PKK, the YPG and other Kurdish forces, but also at odds with the United States, Iran, and Baghdad.
