Nervous Iraqi Kurds in the village of Khizava, along the border with Turkey, are awaiting a Turkish attack on Kurdish rebels, although many believe the guerrillas will prove elusive.
In Khizava, anxiety was palpable when the humming of a US drone filled the sky overhead, prompting residents to strain their ears and look up.
"I'm sure the PKK [Kurdistan Workers' Party] fighters are not up there. They have left. They will not wait to be bombed," Khaled Hassan, 32, said.
PHOTO: AFP
Hassan and two of his cousins crouched by the side of the main road leading out of Khizava and onto the mountain summits, which the PKK use as hideouts because they are difficult to penetrate.
Iraqi Kurdish policemen and soldiers manned checkpoints nearby, allowing only villagers to enter.
Hassan and his cousins are optimistic that Turkish tanks will not rumble into the village to hunt down the PKK.
"We often hear the sound of the guns, but I do not believe that the Turkish tanks will come this time," he said. "Everything will be fine."
Schoolteacher Abdulmajid, who declined to give his full name, echoed Hassan's view.
Two weeks ago he accompanied British journalists to a PKK position where they were met by "only two" rebels, he said.
"They told us that they had received orders to leave for the Iranian border or Turkey," Abdulmajid said.
"The Turks will destroy the bases which they know or those which the Americans will inform them about thanks to their drones. But there will be no one inside. The PKK have secret positions to fall back on. They will hide and wait till the end of the storm," he said.
But other residents of Khizava, which is nestled on the slopes of Mount Sindi a few kilometers away from the Turkish border, were not quite so sure.
Jihan Ali, a 31-year-old mother of five, recalled that the Turkish air force bombed PKK rebels in the village in 1997.
"Of course, we are afraid of the Turks. If they attack, we will leave," she said, with the matter-of-fact look of someone who has fled her home three times to escape Turkish attacks on PKK bases.
"The last time was in 1997. The PKK rebels had settled in the village and the planes bombed them," she said, as she baked bread for her barefooted children.
"These PKK men, even if they are defending their rights, bring only death and misfortune. I hate them," she said.
Her brother-in-law Edriss Mohammad said he regularly comes across PKK rebels on the mountain slopes when he takes his sheep to graze.
"They can hide well, under the trees or in the caves. If the Turks attack, they will escape, that's for sure," he said.
Around 3,500 PKK guerrillas are believed to be deployed in the rugged mountains bordering Iraq, Iran and Turkey, from where they carry cross-border attacks inside Turkey.
In an Oct. 21 ambush guerrillas crossed the border and killed 12 Turkish soldiers, angering Ankara, which has threatened to launch a military incursion inside the autonomous Kurdish-run north of Iraq to flush out the guerrillas.
Jittery residents from nearby Dashtatakh village have already fled, leaving behind only elderly and ill men to look after their homes and to feed the cattle.
Crowds in Bangladesh are flocking to snap photographs with an unlikely social media star — an albino buffalo with flowing blond hair nicknamed “Donald Trump” that is due to be sacrificed within days. Owner Zia Uddin Mridha, 38, said his brother named the 700kg bull over its flowing helmet of hair resembling the signature look of the US president. “My younger brother picked this name because of the buffalo’s extraordinary hair,” he said at his farm in Narayanganj, just outside the capital, Dhaka. Mridha said that a constant stream of curious visitors — social media fans, onlookers and children — have come throughout
It began as a satirical online project. Now millions of young people in India are flocking to it as an outlet for their frustration. A parody political party called the Cockroach Janta Party, with the insect as its symbol, has exploded across India’s social media by turning absurdist humor into protest. Memes and short videos mocking corruption, joblessness and political dysfunction have flooded social media sites, where millions of users are embracing the cockroach — known for its ability to survive harsh conditions — as a tongue-in-cheek symbol of endurance. The online movement’s rise has been unusually rapid. The Cockroach Janta Party (CJP)
BIGGER ROLE: Beijing has said it maintains an impartial stance on the war in Ukraine, but by training Russian troops, China is far more involved than previously known China’s armed forces secretly trained about 200 Russian military personnel in China late last year, and some have since returned to fight in Ukraine, according to three European intelligence agencies and documents seen by Reuters. While China and Russia have held a number of joint military exercises since Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Beijing has repeatedly said that it is neutral in the conflict and presents itself as a peace mediator. The covert training sessions, which predominantly focused on the use of drones, were outlined in a dual-language Russian-Chinese agreement signed by senior Russian and Chinese officers in Beijing on
HOTTER: While Indians are accustomed to summer heat, climate change has caused northwestern India to warm faster than other parts of the country, an academic said Roads and markets have emptied during afternoons and some farmers have switched to nighttime work to avoid scorching temperatures as a heat wave grips large parts of India. The India Meteorological Department forecast maximum temperatures for yesterday of about 45°C in the capital, New Delhi, where authorities have opened temporary “cooling zones” to help people cope. The weather department warned that conditions would likely persist across several northern regions in the coming days, with temperatures staying well above seasonal averages. Authorities urged people to stay indoors during the hottest hours and take precautions against heat-related illnesses. India declares a heat wave whenever maximum temperatures
RSS