Kurdish guerrillas launched an attack on Turkish troops

June 19, 2010

Kurdish guerrillas launched an attack on Turkish troops in southeast Turkey overnight. The attack marked a fresh escalation of conflict in the region and military reinforcements were sent to the scene of the attack at Semdinli in Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq.
There has been an increase in separatist violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast in recent weeks, as warmer weather brings increased infiltration of PKK rebels from the mountains of northern Iraq, where several thousand of them are based. On July 2, 2010 the PKK have scrapped a year-old unilateral ceasefire and resumed attacks against Turkish forces. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict since the PKK launched its armed insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey.

The military arms of PKK participate in these operation.

The YJA STAR is the name of the female combat units within the separatist group Kurdistan Workers’ Party . The current Headquarters Commander is Çigdem Dogu (code name Rengin Botan).

The term YJA STAR is an acronym for “Yekîtîya Jinen Azad” and means unity of the free woman.” STAR is a reference to the goddess Ishtar.
The army of women units, were part of Kurdish ARGK (until 2000) or the Popular Defence Forces (HPG), since 2000). Later, the women organized themselves in the TAJK Tevgera Kurdistan Freedom Falcons Jinen (freedom of movement of women of Kurdistan). The most prominent figure to identify with the women’s movement was Gülnaz Karatas , the KDP[1] peshmerga who fell from a cliff in order to avoid a seizure. People’s Defence Forces (HPG) is the military wing of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

There is also The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (Kurdish: Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan, TAK), also called the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks, is a militant paramilitary group that has committed attacks throughout Turkey, operating in southern Turkey and northern Iraq with a goal of securing Kurdish secession from Turkey. It is unclear whether or not TAK is connected to any other Kurdish nationalist organizations, though it is believed they split off from the Kurdistan Workers Party
(PKK) when they became dissatisfied with the group’s tactics.

This group goes by other names including, but not limited to Kurdish Vengeance Brigade, Kurdistan Freedom Falcons Organization, Kurdistan Liberation Hawks

[1] One of the two major Kurdish parties the KDP and the PUK. Pêsmerge or ????????? ??) is the term used by Kurds to refer to armed Kurdish fighters. Literally meaning “those who face death” (Pesh front + marg death).