Dozens protest against drone attack in Iraq that killed two journalists

Several dozen demonstrators gathered in Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on Saturday to protest against a drone strike blamed on Turkey that killed two female journalists working for media outlets funded by Kurdish militants.

According to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Friday's bombing killed 40-year-old Gulistan Tara, a Kurdish journalist from Turkey, and 27-year-old Hero Bahadin, an Iraqi Kurdish video editor. One other person was injured.

While both an Iraqi security source and the anti-terror service in the regional capital Erbil attributed the attack to Turkey, the Defense Ministry in Ankara stated in response to an AFP query that it was “not the Turkish army” that carried out the attack.

“The martyrs will not die,” chanted the crowd of about a hundred people gathered in a park in Sulaimaniyah, the region’s second-largest city, holding up posters of the two women.

The CPJ said the journalists worked for the Kurdish media production house CHATR, which operates two “news channels funded by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).”

The PKK, which has been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades, has bases in the mountains of northern Iraq.

The Turkish army maintains a network of bases in the region to fight the Kurdish militant group, which is proscribed as a “terrorist organization” by the European Union and the United States.

“The Turkish bombings affect everyone in Kurdistan, the civilian population is a victim,” said activist Robar Ahmed.

“Life in the countryside has almost come to a standstill because it is not possible to live with strikes day and night, every minute and every hour,” she said at the protest.

Following a visit by Turkish officials to Baghdad, the German government declared the PKK a “banned organization” in March.

Earlier this month, Turkey and Iraq agreed on a military cooperation pact that includes joint training and command centers to fight Kurdish militants.