ISTANBUL: Turkish warplanes killed over 20 smugglers near the Iraq border on Wednesday night, after mistaking them for PKK militants. Thirty burned corpses are reported among the victims, most of them between 17- and 20-years-old. The Firat news agency, which has close ties to the PKK, said an additional 17 people are believed missing. The Turkish government was not immediately available for comment. “We could not have known whether these people were PKK group members or smugglers,” said one Turkish security official. The airstrike followed rumors that the PKK would cross the region. The group was spotted by unmanned drones and thermal cameras, and mistaken for Kurdish rebels. Images of the crowd were recorded last night and the operation was carried out on the Iraqi side of the border. Security sources say those killed teenagers were carrying canisters of diesel on mules and donkeys. Smuggling is an important source of income for the impoverished villagers, bringing fuel, cigarettes and other goods from Iraqi villages to the Kurdish villiages in southeast Turkey. Pro-Kurdish legislator Namzi Gur said that officials would have known that smugglers would be traveling in that area. The corpses were removed from the hillside by donkeys before transported to a hospital into the mainly Kurdish region. PKK militants are also known to use the vulnerable border as a springboard for hit-and-run attacks. Recently, the United States deployed four Predator drones to Turkey from Iraq following the American troop withdrawal from the country to assist Turkey in its fight against PKK rebels. The airstrike is the latest in a series of military responses to the terrorist attacks in October that killed 24 Turkish soldiers in raids on military outposts in southeast Turkey. It was one of the deadliest attacks since the PKK took up arms in 1984 in a conflict that has killed more than 40,000 people. Turkish leaders vowed revenge that same month with air and ground strikes. BM ShortURL: http://goo.gl/omFq1 Tags: Airstrike, PKK, Teenagers, Turkey Section: Europe, Iraq, Latest News
