helicopter kurds
© Inside SyriaIllegal invasion: Downed Turkish S-70 helicopter in northern Iraq
Inside Syria Media Center sources in Iraq report that the Turkish armed forces suffered heavy losses in a battle against Iraqi Kurds on February 16th. Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters downed a Turkish S-70 Black Hawk helicopter by heavy machine-gun fire. The helicopter crashed in an Iraqi region, near the border with the Turkish province of Hakkari to the north-west of Erbil. Six Turkish military personnel died in the crash.

Observers report that Turkish forces have faced strong resistance from the Kurds since the beginning of their operations in northern Iraq, despite the fact that the Kurds are largely defending themselves with small arms in a life-and-death situation.

The Turkish army has been killing civilians across the border in southeasten Turkey. The Kurdish-inhabited areas of Diyarbakir, Cizre, Silopi, Mardin are all under military curfew. The locals face a humanitarian disaster as the Turkish authorities block necessities, including medicine and food supplies. In the meantime, they are preventing journalists and representatives of humanitarian organizations from entering those areas.

kurds helicopter
© Inside Syria
As was reported by the Human Rights Foundation of Turkey (HRFT), more than 220 civilians - mostly women, children and the elderly - have died because of lack of access to water and medicine. Turkish artillery and helicopters almost totally destroyed residential districts in Cizre from the period of December 2015 to February 2016.

Turkish member of parliament Feleknas Uca said that Turkish forces burned alive around 150 Kurds in Sirnak province in February 2016. Moreover, in killings reminiscent of Islamic State (IS) atrocities, some bodies were found dismembered, their heads cut off by Turkish soldiers.

The Turkish army did not stop at the country's border but pursued the Kurds in Syria and Iraq. On February 13, 2016, Turkish armed forces shelled Menagh air base, which the Kurdish militia had recently taken from IS terrorists. The military operation against the Kurds has become a regional war, with both sides suffering losses. Little is known, however, about the numbers of lost, wounded or captured Turkish soldiers. The question is why?

Kurds helicopter
© Inside Syria
Leading Arab media outlets regularly report that Turkish armed forces are losing dozens of soldiers and officers daily - both killed and wounded. But no one speaks about this in Turkey. The Erdogan government has imposed severe censorship all over the country, and the security forces are filtering any information that could in any way damage the internal or international reputation of Erdogan's regime.

That is why you will find no information in the Turkish press about the downed helicopter and the loss of six military personnel in northern Iraq on February 16th. Additionally, this was not the first such incident. According to Reuters, the Kurdish militia has previously downed Turkish helicopters in Sirnak province in August and November, 2015.

It's an open secret now that Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wishes to restore the Ottoman Empire. And thus he tries to maintain an image of his army being 'invincible' and the most powerful force in the region.

The military operation against the Kurds shows, however, that the Turkish armed forces' 'great power' is just a myth - they can only fight effectively against unarmed civilians.