By Turkish air forces launched extensive strikes against Kurdish militant targets across Iraq and Syria Wednesday, hours after suspected Kurdish militants killed five people in an attack on a critical state defense facility in what officials called a direct assault on Turkey’s military industrial complex.
The Defense Ministry reported destroying more than 30 targets in the retaliatory offensive, while claiming to take precautions against civilian casualties. The strikes followed a brazen attack on TUSAS, Turkey’s premier aerospace and defense company, where two militants — a man and a woman — detonated explosives and opened fire before being killed by security forces.
The assault on TUSAS, which produces crucial unmanned aerial vehicles for Turkey’s counter-insurgency operations, left five dead and 22 injured, including seven security personnel. Among the victims was mechanical engineer Zahide Guclu, killed while collecting flowers sent by her husband at the facility’s entrance. A taxi driver was found dead in his vehicle’s trunk.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya and Defense Minister Yasar Guler attributed the attack to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), with Guler vowing to “pursue them until the last terrorist is eliminated.” The incident occurred amid delicate political developments, as Turkey’s far-right nationalist party had just floated the possibility of parole for imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan if he renounced violence.
“I condemn this heinous terrorist attack,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin at a BRICS gathering. The attack drew swift international condemnation, with the U.S. Embassy, NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte, and UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres expressing solidarity with Turkey.
Security camera footage showed an attacker in plainclothes carrying a backpack and assault rifle. Witnesses described prolonged gunfire and chaos at the facility. “We will work harder and produce more in defiance of the traitors,” one TUSAS employee shouted during evacuation, captured on video by Haberturk.
The incident highlighted TUSAS’s strategic importance in Turkey’s defense infrastructure. The company designs and manufactures civilian and military aircraft, including UAVs that have proved crucial in Turkey’s operations against Kurdish militants.
Iraq’s Embassy in Ankara, which recently banned the PKK, condemned the attack and reaffirmed its opposition to “terrorism and extremism in all its forms.” The PKK, designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and its Western allies, has waged a decades-long insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in southeast Turkey, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths since the 1980s.
Turkish authorities temporarily restricted media coverage of the attack and limited access to social media platforms, while Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz characterized the assault as targeting Turkey’s “success in the defense industry.”
The attack’s timing, coinciding with discussions about potential dialogue to end the Kurdish conflict, prompted Turkey’s pro-Kurdish political party to note the tragic irony while joining in condemning the violence.
