Turkey’s government said it had launched airstrikes on Wednesday night against places in Iraq and Syria associated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The step follows a previous assault near the capital Ankara, against which Turkish authorities have blamed the PKK. Five people have been killed and 22 others are left injured, including special operations forces, when the bombing was received by the entrance of Turkish Aerospace Industries about 40km from the capital. In it, four employees of Turkish Aerospace Industries and a taxi driver lost their lives.
It said it carried out the attack as a message to the Turkish state, citing that two of its militants had carried it out. In response, Turkey’s defense ministry said that 32 PKK-linked targets were destroyed during retaliatory airstrikes.
Reacting to the attack, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said through his statement from the BRICS summit that the Turkish State will not tolerate terrorist threats and ensured that he vowed to strike with all force; thus, after the incident, the Turkish authorities have imposed a media blackout in the region, covering access to social media platforms in several regions to prevent further spread of images related to the attacks
It is also one of Turkey’s most prominent defense-related industrial plants, manufacturing aircraft like the US-designed F-16, and was reportedly targeted during a shift change. This firm stands as critical to the modernization of Turkey’s military capabilities and thus may have been a target in this incident.