World Bulletin / News Desk

Despite a purported retreat from the area, members of an Iraqi group linked to the terrorist PKK are waiting in camouflage with guns in abandoned houses in Sinjar, northern Iraq, security sources said on Friday.

Members of the PKK-linked so-called Sinjar Defense Unit (SDU) hide in some houses in the town of Sinjar, in the Nineveh province, said the sources, who asked not to be named due to restrictions on talking to the media.

Iraqi troops were deployed in Sinjar after March 24, when the PKK terrorist group was said to have retreated.

“They didn’t leave the city, they hide in abandoned houses with their camouflage on and guns in their hands,” a Sinjar resident said.

“They can regroup at any time.”

The SDU was founded in 2014 by the PKK, a terrorist group which has taken 40,000 lives in Turkey in its 30-year terrorist campaign.

The PKK first established a foothold in Sinjar in 2014 on the pretext that it was “protecting” the local Ezidi community from the terrorist group ISIL.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has warned of the possibility of a military campaign aimed at dislodging the PKK from Sinjar.