Turkey’s Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said soldiers conducting an operation against Kurdistan Workers Party fighters in northern Iraq have found the bodies of 13 kidnapped Turks, in a cave. They had been executed. Arab News reports that twelve had been shot in the head, while one had been shot in the shoulder.

Forty-eight PKK fighters had reportedly been killed in the operation, while three Turkish soldiers were killed and another three wounded. The operation, launched in February against the PKK in northern Iraq’s Gara region, was supposedly to secure Turkey’s border. According to Akar, it was also to locate Turkish nationals who had been kidnapped in Iraq.

The Turkish Defence Minister said that initial information by two PKK fighters captured alive, indicated that the Turkish nationals abducted had been killed at the start of the operation.

Meanwhile, Arab News reports, a statement on a PKK website said some prisoners it was holding had died during clashes in the area. Among them were Turkish intelligence, police, and military personnel. The group said it had never harmed prisoners. The identity of those found dead in the cave, however, remains unknown.

Umm Muhammed Umar