PKK Members Injured in Car Bombing in Northern Iraq

Two PKK members were seriously injured in a car bombing in Sulaimaniya, northern Iraq. The incident comes as Iraq increases pressure on the group, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US, and the EU. This follows recent arrests linked to planned attacks, including on northern oil pipelines.

Two members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were seriously injured on Tuesday after a bomb attached to their car exploded in the city of Sulaimaniya in the semi-autonomous Kurdistan region of northern Iraq, Iraqi Kurdistan's counter-terrorism service said in a statement.

The counter-terrorism service said the wounded men, who were a driver and a passenger, were PKK members. Iraq said on Monday it had arrested three people linked to the PKK and suspected of planning attacks across the country, including on an oil-export pipeline in the north.

The PKK, which has bases around northern Iraq, is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union. The group launched an insurgency in southeast Turkey in 1984 in which more than 40,000 people have been killed. Turkish forces regularly carry out strikes in neighbouring Iraq as part of an offensive against PKK militants there.

Iraq has stepped up pressure on the PKK since Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan visited Baghdad in April.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)