At least 31 people have been killed in a wave of air strikes launched by the Turkish air force against the northern portions of Syria and Iraq. The figures were provided by the Kurdish autonomous authorities, according to which the vast majority of the dead belong to their population. Among them, eleven civilians (information that, however, at least for now, has not been confirmed by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, SOHR).

According to Kurdish authorities, civilians were also killed

The forces under Recep Tayyip Erdogan's command launched the aerial operation on Saturday 19 November, which continued until Sunday. The provinces of Aleppo, Raqqa and al-Hasakah were struck (including the city of Kobane): the bombardments are also said to have killed some soldiers of the regular Syrian army. The number of wounded is said to be around forty.

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"The reckoning has come! The traitors will pay for their ignoble attacks," wrote the Defence Ministry of Ankara in a tweet, showing a photograph of a fighter jet taking off. The Turkish government specified that, in its view, the operation was decided "in accordance with the right to self-defence enshrined in Article 51 of the United Nations Charter, with the aim of annihilating terrorists in northern Iraq and Syria, and ensuring border security."

Turkey's response to the 13 November attack in Istanbul

The reference is to the attack of last 13 November in Istanbul, which claimed six lives and left 81 injured, and for which Turkey identified the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), the People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as responsible, backed, according to Ankara, by the United States. The accusations were rejected outright, but Erdogan's government nonetheless decided to press ahead with the attack.

There were at least twenty strikes. The commander-in-chief of the SDF, Mazloum Abdi, described them as "a barbaric Turkish aggression against our areas, which threatens the entire region. We will do everything we can to avoid a catastrophe. If a war breaks out, everyone will suffer the consequences."

Erdogan has been expressing his intention to carry out a military operation in northern Syria since at least last May, with the aim of targeting Kurdish fighters and establishing a "security zone" of 30 kilometres along the border with Turkey.

There is no peace for the Kurds

In the weeks preceding Turkey's attack, Iran bombed Kurds in Iraq. The most recent bombardment dates back to 14 November, when the Islamic republic targeted the headquarters of the Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) in Koysanjaq, in Iraqi Kurdistan, killing at least two people and wounding ten. In other localities in the autonomous region, the headquarters of the Iranian Communist Party and the Iranian-Kurdish nationalist group Komala were also struck.

Iran accused Kurdish militants based in Iraq of fomenting the unrest that broke out following the death of Mahsa Jina Amini, the 16-year-old Kurdish girl killed by the Iranian Revolutionary Guards on 16 September. But Koysanjaq was not the only attack. In a Guards raid carried out in September, 13 people were killed and 58 wounded near Erbil and Sulaymaniyah, while on 8 October the Pasdaran announced the end of another operation in Kurdistan that had caused 18 deaths and over 60 injuries. In short, the Kurds continue to be collateral victims of the conflict in the Middle East.