Turkey has massively expanded its occupation operation in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq in recent weeks and is preparing its long-announced “summer offensive” against the Kurdish guerrillas. Massive troop concentrations have been taking place for weeks. Troops are being increased and tanks are being deployed in and around Amadiya in particular.

According to local sources, warplanes of the occupying Turkish state bombed the Guherzê village in Amadiya district of Duhok city at around 15.00 local time today.

It was reported that a big fire broke out near the village after the bombing and the fire spread gradually.

Local sources reported that the fire was only 500 metres away from the houses. Villagers do not dare to go to their houses due to the bombardments.

Turkey is penetrating ever deeper into the territory of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI). According to information from the local NGO Community Peacemaker Teams (CPT) on Sunday, the Turkish occupation offensive “Operation Claw Lock”, which was expanded to parts of the Amêdî district in mid-June, now reaches fifteen kilometers deep into the country.

In the previous “Operation Claw Lightning and Thunderbolt”, which lasted from April 2021 to April 2022, occupation troops had only advanced seven kilometers into the region and had established themselves in the village of Hiror (Hrure) because the front of the guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) could not be broken through. In order to overcome this, the Turkish army is now strengthening its more than 70 military bases in the KRI, which are operating in violation of international law, and is building seven new bases that are concentrated in the Kanî Masî sub-district in Barwarî Bala, which belongs to Amêdî. The population of several villages has already been displaced in recent weeks as a result of this military violence in the southern Kurdish border region, and other villages are now threatened with the same fate – with the approval of the Barzani party KDP, which is allied with Turkey.

At least 602 villages in the Kurdistan region of Iraq are currently threatened with violent evacuation as a result of Turkish expansionism. This figure was also confirmed by CPT, which named 162 villages whose populations have already been displaced since the start of the Turkish “claw operations” in early summer 2020. In order to achieve the long-term goal of destroying the autonomous status of the Kurdistan region and securing Turkey’s control over strategically important areas in northern Iraq, in addition to permanent bombings of guerrilla areas, the Turkish army is also carrying out targeted attacks on civilian settlements – under the guise of border security and an alleged “terrorist threat” to Ankara.

Taking advantage of the silence of Baghdad and Erbil, Turkish forces set up checkpoints and started performing identity checks in Duhok, while forcibly evacuating many villages.

In a statement on 3 July, the KCK (Kurdistan Communities Union) Foreign Relations Committee reported that the Turkish state is deploying ISIS mercenaries into the areas it seeks to occupy in southern Kurdistan, in addition to the village guards and Roj mercenaries.

“The international public should be aware of this as well; these ISIS gangs, who are currently fighting the Kurdistan freedom guerrillas, are poised to be a plague on humanity; like a ticking bomb, they will cause great harm. A solid reaction must be mounted against the Turkish state’s invasion of Iraq and southern Kurdistan and the deployment of these fascist ISIS gangs,” KCK said.