3 Iraqi border guards killed in Turkish drone bombing in northern Iraq

Two Iraqi border guard officers and a soldier were killed on Tuesday in an airstrike by a Turkish drone in a border area in Iraq's semi-autonomous region of Kurdistan, the Iraqi military said.

"A Turkish blatant attack targeted a military vehicle of border guards in the Sidekan area caused the death of the commander of the 2nd border guard brigade, commander of the brigade's 3rd regiment and the driver," the media office of the Joint Operations Command said in a brief statement.

Rudaw, a Kurdish media network, said the drone bombing came when Iraqi border guard officers and members of Turkey's Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were meeting.

The airstrike killed five persons including two brigadier generals and a colonel from the Iraqi border guard forces, Ihsan al-Chalabi, mayor of Sidekan, was quoted by Rudaw as saying.

Turkish forces frequently carry out ground operations, airstrikes and artillery bombardments against the positions of the PKK militants in northern Iraq, especially the Qandil Mountains, the main base of the PKK.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.