1 killed, 9 wounded in storm on Turkish military base in northern Iraq

BAGHDAD - One Iraqi Kurdish demonstrator was killed and nine others wounded on Saturday in a protest in a Turkish military base inside the semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan in northern Iraq, a Kurdish security source said.

"Angry people broke into a Turkish military base in Shiladze area in Iraq's northern province of Duhok to protest Turkish bombardment on Kurdistan border areas in the afternoon," the source told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

Some protestors set fire to tents and military vehicles and clashed with the Turkish soldiers who fired bullets into the air to disperse the crowd, the source added.

The clashes in the military base resulted in the killing of one protestor and the wounding of nine others, most of whom sustained slight wounds, the source said.

Afterwards, the Turkish troops withdrew from the base to avoid casualties, leaving the Peshmerga troops to take control of the site to evacuate the protestors from the Turkish base peacefully, the source added.

Earlier, the Kurdish media network Rudaw said dozens of protesters stormed a Turkish base in Shiladze and set fire to military vehicles inside the Turkish military site after a clash with the Turkish troops, leaving at least two Kurdish protesters wounded.

It said the angry demonstrators were protesting the repeated airstrikes and artillery shelling on the Kurdish villages near the Iraqi-Turkish border.

According to the website of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), the Kurdish citizens found on Friday bodies of six people, including two Kurdish security members, known as Peshmerga, who were killed by the Turkish bombardment on the Deraluk area in Duhok province.

The demonstrators called on the federal and regional Kurdistan governments to intervene to stop the bombing, said the official website of PUK, a major Kurdish party in which the Iraqi President Barham Salih is a leading figure.

Turkish forces frequently carry out ground operations, airstrikes and artillery bombardment against the positions of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq, especially the Qandil Mountains, the main base of the PKK.