Updated at 6:05 p.m. EDT, July 2, 2010
Five Iraqis were killed and seven more were wounded in light violence, but battles between Turkish troops and PKK rebels based in northern Iraq heated up. Meanwhile, two U.S. soldiers were killed in separate non-combat incidents.
Turkish warplanes continued airstrikes against suspected Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) hideouts in the Qandil Mountains, while clashes again took place in Turkey. Peshmerga forces reported damage to buildings in Arbil province as well as the destruction of a bridge. After coming under gunfire in a Turkish village, Turkish troops left civilian casualties.
Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned head of the PKK, suggested a mutual truce and taking peaceful steps toward increasing rights for Turkey’s Kurdish population. The PKK had imposed a unilateral truce on themselves last year in hopes of gaining Turkish attention for full peace talks, but abandoned it recently over Ankara’s indifference. They have been fighting a guerilla war for almost three decades to establish an autonomous Kurdish homeland.
Gunmen killed the brother of Iraq’s leading Sunni scholar, Sheikh Abdul Malik al-Saadi, in Ramadi.
Four people were wounded in Baquba when a bomb planted in a garbage dump exploded. A suspected Ba’athist was arrested.
In Baghdad, three pilgrims were wounded in a bomb attack on the al-Kadhim shrine. A bomb targeting an Iraqiya-list politician left no casualties.
In Mosul, U.S. forces killed two suspected leaders from the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI) militant group. Two suspects were arrested in a separate operation.
The body of a pregnant woman was found shot to death in Mandali.
In Kirkuk, a civilian was killed in a drive-by shooting near the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan Party (PUK) offices.
Eight smugglers transporting cigarettes and light weapons were arrested at the Syrian border.
Tal Afar officials imposed a vehicle ban.
Eight suspects were detained in Basra province.
