A Turkish drone carried out a strike targeting a car near the Serdesht Camp in the Yazidi town of Shengal (Sinjar) on Sunday.

In a statement about the attack, Shengal Resistance Units (YBŞ) announced that three of their fighters were martyred.

The YBŞ statement said: “The invading Turkish state targeted a car of our forces at 13:50 local time today. The brutal attack claimed the lives of three of our comrades. The goal of the invading Turkish state’s attacks is to disturb the security and peace in Shengal and to prevent the return of displaced people. The enemy forces who think that we will be intimidated and take steps backward in the face of the ongoing attacks should know well that we will continue to follow in the footsteps of our martyrs. We will not give up on our struggle and our legitimate rights until we crown this cause with victory.”

YBŞ added that the ID information of the fallen fighters would be announced to the public soon.

Background

Turkish drone attacks in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KRI) have remarkably increased in recent months. Baghdad and Erbil usually ignore these attacks and the international community also lets Ankara have its way in its war in Kurdistan. Turkey's drone war against the autonomous region of northern and eastern Syria also goes largely unnoticed internationally.

On 5 September, a Turkish drone attacked the city hall of Binarê Qendîl. A city council van was hit in front of the building, causing significant damage to other local council vehicles and the city hall building.

On 27 August, a Turkish drone targeted a vehicle traveling on the Germkê road within the borders of Pêncewîn, in the province of Sulaymaniyah.

On 24 August, the Turkish state carried out another drone attack in KRI. The attack targeted a vehicle moving along a busy road and killed four civilians in Mergemîr in Bradost.

On 11 August, a drone of the invading Turkish state struck a civilian car on the move in the Pêncîwên district of Sulaymaniyah in South Kurdistan. The attack claimed the lives of three members of a family from Duhok.

At the end of May, Said Êşur (Said Ashor) was killed in a Turkish drone attack on a residential building in Xanesor. The Yazidi man, who lost numerous relatives in the ISIS raid inShŞengal, had been working for the British NGO Mines Advisory Group (MAG), which works internationally on demining in crisis and conflict areas, since 2016. The Turkish state, on the other hand, claimed Êşur was a "terrorist". At the end of February, two commanders of the YBŞ (Shengal Resistance Units), Pîr Çeko and Agir Cefrî, were killed in a drone strike. Two days later, Şêrzad Şemo Qasim from the leadership of the local security forces, Asayîşa Êzdîxanê, was killed, also by an air strike. Both organisations, the YBŞ and the Asayîşa Êzdîxanê, were founded under the impression of the genocide perpetrated by ISIS against the Yazidi community of Shengal in 2014.