Counterterrorism Blog

Turkey has just launched a fresh set of air raids against PKK targets in northern Iraq, continuing from last weekend into this week, following a series of PKK attacks in Turkey that killed four civilians and six soldiers. The New Anatolian reported yesterday that after the PKK's attacks, "The Turkish military retaliated with artillery strikes against the PKK hideouts in northern Iraq while the terrorists who attacked the military outpost were cornered as they fled back into northern Iraq and were destroyed by repeated air raids that continued into Monday. Turkish fighters also destroyed the PKK propaganda center in northern Iraq which also served as the main broadcasting unit for Roj TV, the mouthpiece of the militant organization based in Denmark."

Such incursions by Turkey worry many analysts who are concerned about the risks of accidental skirmishes and civilian casualties. Today my associate Samantha Rollinger and I have an article in the Middle East Times that assesses the risks posed by such Turkish raids. An excerpt:

We spoke with several analysts who felt that a miscalculated conflict between Turkish and American forces was simply not a realistic concern due to coordination between the two countries' militaries. Svante Cornell, research director for the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins University's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, told us that Turkey's ground offensive in February never could have occurred without coordination with the United States. "An accidental conflict between U.S. forces and Turkish forces is not even worth talking about," he said. "The Turkish military has a direct relationship with the U.S. military. The U.S. was informed, and was brought to a point of approving of it." Cornell emphasized that while the U.S. was likely displeased with Turkey's incursion, it understood that the intervention was inevitable due to PKK attacks against Turkey....

The PKK's location has also helped to keep civilian casualties from spiraling out of control during Turkish interventions. A senior American military intelligence officer told us that the PKK does not follow Mao Zedong's famous adage that "the guerilla is the fish and the people are the sea." Moreover, he noted that the PKK does not have a great deal of support in northern Iraq's large urban areas - thus inhibiting the group's ability to mix into the civilian population to the same extent as, for example, al-Qaida in Iraq.

You can read the whole article here.