MIDDLE EAST:: Airstrike on Turkey-Iraq border kills 35 people, official says – CNN
By MB Snow at December 29, 2011 | 2:33 pm | Print
Istanbul (CNN) — A Turkish airstrike on the border with Iraq killed 35 people who are now thought to have been smuggling cigarettes, a senior Turkish lawmaker said Thursday.
Turkish air force jets launched the strike late Wednesday after unmanned aerial vehicles showed a group moving from Iraq toward the border with Turkey in an area “mostly used by terrorists,” a statement from the military general staff said.
But a senior member of Turkey’s governing Justice and Development Party (AKP) said early indications are that those identified by the drones and subsequently killed were civilians.
“These people were thought to be terrorists; however, the first initial investigative information we have from the local authorities, especially from Sirnak Governor’s office, indicate that these people are involved in cigarette smuggling,” said the AKP’s deputy chairman and spokesman Huseyin Celik.
He said the strike had killed many members of the same family.
“Even if there was a situation 100% that these people were smugglers, these people should not have been subjected to this, they should not have been bombed. It is out of question,” he said.
Expressing his condolences to the affected families, he vowed that a full investigation would be carried out and no cover-up would be allowed.
A local official in Turkey’s southeastern province of Sirnak earlier said the airstrike had killed at least 31 Kurdish villagers.
“A group of villagers were coming from northern Iraq across the border after 9:30 p.m. Their path was blocked by soldiers and then four planes bombed them,” said the official, Yunus Urek of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party.
The incident occurred in a region where there is a large Kurdish population. The people were from the border villages of Ortasu and Gulyazi, according to Urek, who said he was in Ortasu.
Urek said the victims frequently cross the border “for their daily needs like sugar or fuel.” He said one person survived the strike.
Turkish authorities said an administrative and legal investigation was under way.
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