File photo of Turkish helicopter gunships

Various areas across the northern Iraqi Kurdistan region have witnessed an escalation in Turkey’s ongoing strikes against alleged targets belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) terrorist group.

On Sunday, four people were killed in a Turkish airstrike on a vehicle in the Sulaymaniyah’s Province’s Halsho area in Kurdistan, Kurdish-language television Rudaw reported, citing local mayor Bakr Waisy.

The mayor identified the exact whereabouts of the attack as the stretch of land lying between the villages of Kani Lan and Dega.

The Dohuk Province’s Amedi District also saw intense clashes between the Turkish military and the PKK, the channel added, saying Turkish helicopter gunships were bombing a village in the district.

Turkey has been using the presence of the anti-Ankara outfit as an excuse to seek year-long mandates from Iraq to pound Kurdistan’s Qandil mountains.

Since last year, it has, however, egregiously overstepped its mandate and stretched the theater of its war on the group to areas lying deep in the Kurdistan region.

Earlier this month, Chairman of the Security and Defense Committee in the Iraqi Parliament, Mohammed Rida Al Haidar denounced the Turkish military presence there as occupation.

Others have, meanwhile, warned about Ankara’s intentions concerning the Arab country’s oil resources.

Turkey has also been conducting an incursion against neighboring Syria’s northern parts since 2016 to fight back against Kurdish militants known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG). Ankara associates the YPG with the PKK.

So far, the Turkish state has deployed thousands of troops in the areas, in what Damascus has decried as, outright violation of its sovereignty.