Turkey is attacking Kurdish targets in Syria and Iraq for the second day

ANKARA, Türkiye (AP) — Turkey struck for a second day Thursday on suspected targets of Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq Attack on the premises of an important defense company At least five people were killed, the state news agency reported.

The National Intelligence Organization targeted numerous “strategic locations” used by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) or Syrian Kurdish militias allied with the militants, Anadolu News Agency reported. Targets included military, intelligence, energy and infrastructure facilities, as well as ammunition depots, the report said. A security official said armed drones were used in Thursday's attacks.

On Wednesday, the Turkish Air Force carried out airstrikes against similar targets in northern Syria and northern Iraq, hours after government officials blamed the PKK for the deadly attack on the headquarters of the aerospace and defense company TUSAS.

Defense Minister Yasar Güler said on Thursday that Wednesday's airstrikes destroyed 47 suspected PKK targets – 29 in Iraq and 18 in Syria.

“Our noble nation should be assured that we will continue our fight to eliminate the evil forces that threaten the security and peace of our country and our people with increasing determination until the last terrorist disappears from this region,” Guler said.

The attackers – a man and a woman – reportedly arrived at the TUSAS compound on the outskirts of Ankara in a taxi that they seized after killing the driver. Armed with assault rifles, they detonated explosive devices and opened fire, killing four people at TUSAS, including a security guard and a mechanical engineer.

Security forces were dispatched immediately after the attack began at around 3:30 p.m., the interior minister said. The attack also killed the two attackers and injured more than 20 people.

There was no immediate comment from the PKK on the attack or the Turkish airstrikes.

In Syria, the main U.S.-backed force said 12 civilians were killed and 25 injured in Turkish attacks in the north of the country.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Turkish warplanes and drones attacked bakeries, power plants, oil facilities and local police checkpoints.

TUSAS designs, manufactures and assembles civil and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other defense industrial and space systems. Its defense systems are considered crucial to Turkey gaining the upper hand in the fight against Kurdish militants.

The attack came a day after the leader of Turkey's far-right Nationalist Party, which is allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, raised the possibility that the PKK the imprisoned leader could be granted Probation if he renounces violence and dissolves his organization.

Abdullah Öcalan, captured in 1999, is serving a life sentence on a prison island off Istanbul.

In a similar development, his nephew Omer Öcalan announced on the social platform X that family members would be allowed to visit him on Wednesday for the first time since March 2020.

Omer Öcalan, a lawmaker from Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party, also conveyed a message from Abdullah Öcalan, saying he was being kept in isolation and offering to work to end the conflict “if the conditions are right.”

“I have the theoretical and practical power to transform this process from a process based on conflict and violence to a process based on law and politics,” Omer Öcalan quoted his uncle as saying.

The PKK is fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey in a conflict that has cost tens of thousands of lives since the 1980s. It is viewed as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

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Associated Press writer Bassem Mroue contributed from Beirut.