DUHOK, Iraq (AA) – The PKK terror group is using Sinjar district in northern Iraq as a crossing point into Syria, an Iraqi official said.
Dayan Jafar, director of the department of migration, displacement and crisis response in northern Iraq’s Kurdish Regional Government (KRG), said PKK terrorists have dug tunnels in Sinjar.
“The terror group kidnaps children and forcibly recruits them to fight in their ranks,” Jafar told Anadolu Agency.
He said that families are “afraid to speak out as they are threatened with death by the terror group.”
The Iraqi official added that displaced civilians will not be able to return to their homes in Sinjar “as the PKK forces are still there.”
Jafar said the PKK terrorist group is building positions inside residential areas. “They are using Sinjar border as a crossing point to transfer its militants into Syria and other areas.”
The PKK terrorist organization managed to establish a foothold in Sinjar in 2014 under the pretext of protecting the Ezidi community from Daesh/ISIS terrorists.
Sinjar has a strategic position as it is some 120 kilometers (74 miles) from Mosul, a regional urban center, and is also near the Turkish-Syrian border.
The terror group aims to create a corridor between PKK/YPG terrorists in northern Syria and Iraq's northern Qandil region.
Qandil is the base of the PKK terror group, while the YPG is the group's Syrian branch.
In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the US, and EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of over 40,000 people, including women, children, and infants.
* Writing by Ahmed Asmar