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BAGHDAD, April 7 (AP) – An explosion occurred Friday near Sulaymaniyah International Airport in northern Iraq’s semiautonomous Kurdish region, local officials said.
The blasts came days after Turkiye closed its airspace to flights to and from the airport, citing threats to flight safety from allegedly increased Kurdish militant activity.
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Turkiye has been fighting Kurdish militants in its east for years.
Large Kurdish communities also live in neighboring Iraq and Syria.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war watcher based in the UK, and some local media reported that the explosion was a Turkish drone attack on Mazloom Abdi, leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the U.S.-backed and Kurdish-led force The main force is in Syria.
Officials from the SDF and the Kurdish regional government in northeastern Syria have denied that Abdi was in Sulaymaniyah at the time or had been targeted.
Fethullah al-Husseini, a representative of the Kurdish autonomous government in northeastern Syria, said Abdi was “continuing his work, in northeastern Syria”.
Airport Security said in a statement that an explosion occurred near the fence surrounding the airport at 4:18 p.m. local time, sparking a fire, but there were no injuries.
The statement said the cause of the explosion was under investigation and the airport was operating normally.
Lawk Ghafuri, head of foreign media affairs for Iraq’s Kurdish regional government, said the investigation was still ongoing and he could not confirm whether the explosion was a drone attack.
However, a statement from Iraq’s Kurdish regional government appeared to place the blame on local authorities in Sulaymaniyah, which it accused of instigating an “attack” on the airport and using “government agencies” for “illegal activities”.
The regional government in Erbil is largely controlled by the Kurdish Democratic Party, while Sulaymaniyah is a stronghold of the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan.
Two Kurdish officials in Erbil, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the incident with reporters, said the explosion was caused by a drone strike.
One of the people said the target of the attack was Abdi.
A representative of the Turkish Ministry of Defense said he had no information about the incident.
The Turkish foreign ministry announced on Wednesday that Turkish airspace was closed to flights departing from Sulaymaniyah airport.
Turkish officials said the closure was due to an alleged increase in activity by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the city of Sulaymaniyah, including “infiltration” of the airport.
The decision came weeks after two helicopters crashed in northern Iraq, killing Kurdish militants on board.
The incident sparked claims that the PKK owned the helicopter, angering Turkish authorities.
The SDF later said nine fighters, including a commander, were killed in a crash on a flight bound for Suleimaniyah during bad weather.
The SDF said the nine included elite fighters who were in Iraq as part of an “exchange of expertise” in the fight against the Islamic State group.
Kurdish Democratic Party officials on good terms with Turkiye claimed after the crash that the helicopters were originally bought by the rival Patriotic Union of Kurdistan and that they were flying without permission from the local government. (Associated Press)
(This is an unedited and auto-generated story from a Syndicated News feed, the content body may not have been modified or edited by LatestLY staff)
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