Turkey strikes Kurdish militant targets in Iraq and Syria following deadly attack on defense company

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s air force struck Kurdish militant targets in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday in an apparent retaliation for an attack at a key state-run defense company that killed five people and wounded more than 20 others.

The defense ministry said more than 30 targets were “destroyed” in the aerial offensive, without providing details on the locations that were hit. It said “all kinds of precautions” were taken to prevent harm to civilians.

The strike came hours after suspected Kurdish militants set off explosives and opened fire at the aerospace and defense company TUSAS. The two attackers — a man and a woman — also were killed, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. At least 22 people, including seven security personnel, were injured during the attack.

Yerlikaya said the militant Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, was believed to be behind the attack at the defense company. Defense Minister Yasar Guler also pointed the finger at the PKK.

“We give these PKK scoundrels the punishment they deserve every time. But they never come to their senses,” Guler said. “We will pursue them until the last terrorist is eliminated.”

Turkey regularly conducts airstrikes against the PKK — which has a foothold in Iraq — and against a Kurdish militia group in Syria that is affiliated with the militants.

There was no immediate statement from the PKK.

The Islamic State group and leftist extremists have also carried out past attacks in Turkey.

"I condemn this heinous terrorist attack,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a BRICS meeting in Russia.

Putin offered condolences. A U.S. Embassy statement said Washington “strongly condemns today’s terrorist attack."

TUSAS designs, manufactures and assembles civilian and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other defense industry and space systems. Its UAVs have been instrumental in Turkey gaining an upper hand in its fight against Kurdish militants.

The attack occurred a day after the leader of Turkey’s far-right nationalist party that's allied with Erdogan raised the possibility that the PKK's imprisoned leader could be granted parole if he renounces violence and disbands his organization.

Abdullah Ocalan's group has been fighting for autonomy in southeast Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

The country's pro-Kurdish political party, which also condemned the TUSAS attack, noted that it had occurred at a time when the possibility of a dialogue to end the conflict had emerged.

Turkish media said the assailants arrived Wednesday at an entry to the TUSAS complex in a taxi. The assailants, carrying assault weapons, detonated an explosive device next to the taxi, causing panic and allowing them to enter.

One of the victims was identified as mechanical engineer Zahide Guclu, who had gone to the entrance to collect flowers sent by her husband, the state-run Anadolu Agency.

The taxi driver was also killed by the assailants and his body was found in the trunk of the vehicle, the agency reported.

Orhan Akdundar, a brother of a TUSAS employee, was among relatives waiting outside the complex for news of their loved ones.

“I called my brother who was inside and said, ‘What happened?’ He said a bomb had exploded and said that gunshots continued for a very long time,” Akdundar said. “There was a huge commotion. The gendarmerie, special forces and other security forces were all here. There were lots of ambulances. Then the phones shut off and I wasn’t able to establish communication.”

An unidentified TUSAS employee shouted: “We will work harder and produce more in defiance of the traitors” as he and other colleagues were being evacuated from the premises, according to a video aired by HaberTurk.

Security camera images, aired on television, showed a man in plainclothes carrying a backpack and holding an assault rifle.

The interior minister said security teams were dispatched as soon as the attack started at around 3:30 p.m.

Multiple gunshots were heard after security forces entered the site, the DHA news agency and other media reported. Helicopters were seen flying above the premises.

Authorities issued a temporary blackout on the coverage of the attack and went on to throttle access to social media websites.

Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz said the target of the attack was Turkey's “success in the defense industry.”

The Iraqi Embassy in Ankara issued a statement condemning the attack. It said the embassy “affirms Iraq’s firm position in rejecting terrorism and extremism in all its forms and manifestations, and expresses the solidarity of Iraq’s government and people, with the government and people of the Republic of Turkey.” Earlier this year, Iraq announced a ban on the PKK.

NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte and U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres both expressed their solidarity with Turkey.

Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis also denounced the attack. "Our thoughts and heartfelt condolences go out to the families of the victims,” he said on X.

Associated Press writer Robert Badendieck in Hamburg, Germany, contributed.

Ambulances wait in line outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo)

Ambulances wait in line outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo)

Ambulances wait in line outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo)

Emergency and security teams are deployed outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo)

Emergency and security teams are deployed outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo)

In this image take from security camera video shows two people with guns and backpacks during an attack on the premises of the Turkish state-run aerospace and defence company (TUSAS ), on the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday Oct. 23, 2024. (Validated UGC via AP)

Emergency and security teams are deployed outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Yavuz Ozden/Dia Photo via AP)

People gather outside of the Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. on the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Yavuz Ozden/Dia Photo via AP)

People gather outside of the Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. on the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Yavuz Ozden/Dia Photo via AP)

People gather outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. at the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (AP Photo/Mert Gokhan Koc)

Emergency and security teams are deployed outside the Turkish state-run aerospace and defense company Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. on the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (Yavuz Ozden/Dia Photo via AP)

Smoke raises as emergency rescue teams and police officers attend outside Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. on the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (IHA via AP)

Emergency rescue teams and police officers work outside of Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. on the outskirts of Ankara, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 23, 2024. (IHA via AP)

FRANKFORT, Ky. (AP) — Days of unrelenting heavy rain and storms that killed at least 18 people worsened flooding as some rivers rose to near-record levels Monday and inundated towns across an already saturated U.S. South and parts of the Midwest.

Cities ordered evacuations and rescue crews in inflatable boats checked on residents in Kentucky and Tennessee, while utilities shut off power and gas in a region stretching from Texas to Ohio.

“I think everybody was shocked at how quick (the river) actually did come up,” said salon owner Jessica Tuggle, who was watching Monday as murky brown water approached her business in Frankfort, Kentucky, the state capital along the swollen Kentucky River.

She said that as each new wave of rain arrived over the weekend, anxious residents hoped for a reprieve so they could just figure out how bad things would get. She and friends packed up her salon gear, including styling chairs, hair products and electronics, and took it to a nearby tap house up the hill.

“Everybody was just ‘stop raining, stop raining’ so we could get an idea of what the worst situation would be,” she said.

Officials diverted traffic and turned off utilities to businesses in the city as the river was expected to approach a record crest Monday.

Ashley Welsh and her husband and four children had to quickly depart their Frankfort home along the river Saturday evening, leaving a lifetime of belongings later submerged by floodwaters.

When she awoke to water coming into their house early Saturday, Welsh woke everyone up and they packed their truck. They alerted guests to leave an Airbnb they own down the road, packed up the Airbnb and then helped her sister, who lives next to the Airbnb, evacuate. After they took a short nap at their house, the water had risen.

“By the time we woke up, there was already three feet of water that we had to wade through to get out,” she said.

They packed a suitcase and escaped from the rising water and went to a local hotel. One daughter carried two cats through water to safety and their black Labrador dog had to swim, as they stayed close to make sure no one got swept away.

The water rose up to their second floor. By Sunday morning, she checked her house's cameras.

“My stuff was floating around in the living room. I was just heartbroken. Our life is up there,” Welsh said.

The 18 reported deaths since the storms began on Wednesday included 10 in Tennessee. A 9-year-old boy in Kentucky was caught up in floodwaters while walking to catch his school bus. A 5-year-old boy in Arkansas died after a tree fell on his family’s home, police said. A 16-year-old volunteer Missouri firefighter died in a crash while seeking to rescue people caught in the storm.

The National Weather Service warned Sunday that dozens of locations in multiple states were expected to reach a “major flood stage,” with extensive flooding of structures, roads, bridges and other critical infrastructure possible.

In north-central Kentucky, emergency officials ordered a mandatory evacuation for Falmouth and Butler, towns near the bend of the rising Licking River. Thirty years ago, the river reached a record 50 feet (15 meters), resulting in five deaths and 1,000 homes destroyed.

The Kentucky River was cresting at Frankfort Lock at 48.27 feet (14.71 meters) on Monday morning, just shy of the record of 48.5 feet (14.78 meters) set there on Dec. 10, 1978, according to CJ Padgett, a meteorologist with the weather service’s Louisville, Kentucky, office. While other areas are in major flood stage, the forecasted crest for this location is closest to its record.

Carroll County Deputy Judge-Executive Michael Humphrey in Kentucky has ordered mandatory evacuations in some places, warning that a “significant flooding event of which history has never seen” is expected.

More than 100 structures were destroyed in McNairy County, Tennessee, where a tornado tore through the town of Selmer with winds estimated up to 160 mph (257 kph), local emergency management officials said. State officials have confirmed five people were killed by the severe weather in the county of roughly 26,100 residents.

The storms come after the Trump administration cut jobs at NWS forecast offices, leaving half of them with vacancy rates of about 20%, or double the level of a decade ago.

Forecasters attributed the violent weather to warm temperatures, an unstable atmosphere, strong winds and abundant moisture streaming from the Gulf.

The NWS said 5.06 inches (nearly 13 centimeters) of rain fell Saturday in Jonesboro, Arkansas — making it the wettest day ever recorded in April in the city. Memphis, Tennessee, received 14 inches (35 centimeters) of rain from Wednesday to Sunday, the NWS said.

Rives, a northwestern Tennessee town of about 200 people, was almost entirely underwater after the Obion River overflowed.

Domanic Scott went to check on his father in Rives after not hearing from him in a house where water reached the doorstep.

“It’s the first house we’ve ever paid off. The insurance companies around here won’t give flood insurance to anyone who lives in Rives because we’re too close to the river and the levees. So if we lose it, we’re kind of screwed without a house,” Scott said.

In Dyersburg, Tennessee, dozens of people arrived over the weekend at a storm shelter near a public school clutching blankets, pillows and other necessities. Just days earlier the city was hit by a tornado that caused millions of dollars in damage.

Contributing to this report were Associated Press writers Anthony Izaguirre in New York; Kimberlee Kruesi and Jonathan Mattise, in Nashville, Tennessee; Sarah Brumfield in Cockeysville, Maryland; Andrew DeMillo in Little Rock, Arkansas; Adrian Sainz in Memphis; Tennessee; Sarah Raza in Sioux Falls, South Dakota; Obed Lamy in Rives, Tennessee; and Sophia Tareen in Chicago.

The rising Ohio River partially submerges the bronze statue of James Bradley along Riverside Drive, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Covington, Ky. Cincinnati and the John A. Roebling Suspension Bridge are seen across the Ohio River. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

A Canadian goose swims in the rising Ohio River at the intersection of River Riverside Place and Ben Bernstein Place, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Covington, Ky., across the river from Cincinnati. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Carole Smith walks through her flooded home on Saturday, April 5, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Search and rescue firefighters carry a boat to a flooded neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

A flooded neighborhood is seen on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Road crews work to clear Lee County Rd. 681 in Saltillo, Miss, Sunday, April 6, 2025, of downed trees that blocked the road following the severe weather that passed through the area Saturday night. (Thomas Wells /The Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal via AP)

CORRECTS TO MICHAEL NOT MICHALE Michael Scott Memering looks out of his trailer after evacuating the Licking River RV Campground that was flooded by the rising waters of the Licking River, seen behind, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Falmouth, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Bill Jones pulls his boat ashore, filled with bottles of bourbon, from a flooded home near the banks of the Kentucky River on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Search and rescue firefighters conduct wellness checks in a neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Abner Wagers stands near flooded homes in the rising waters of the Kentucky River in Monterey, Ky,. Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

The flooded downtown area is seen on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Search and rescue firefighters speak to a resident in a flooded neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

A group of people survey damage at Pounders Mobile Home Park following a strong line of storms in the area in Muscle Shoals, Ala, Sunday, April 6, 2025. (Dan Busey/The TimesDaily via AP)

Search and rescue firefighters conduct wellness checks in a neighborhood on Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Frankfort, Ky. (AP Photo/Jon Cherry)

Abner Wagers walks in the rising waters of the Kentucky River on a flooded Monterey Pike in Monterey, Ky., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

Abner Wagers, right, and Brayden Baker, both with the Monterey Volunteer Fire Department, walk in the rising waters of the Kentucky River near a flooded home in Monterey, Ky., Sunday, April 6, 2025. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)

the rising waters of Cedar Creek and the Kentucky River overflow their banks, Sunday, April 6, 2025, in Monterey, Ky. (AP Photo/Carolyn Kaster)