ERBIL — The Kurdistan Region Security Council on Monday announced that it has foiled a plot by a group affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) to target the Peshmerga forces, dams, electricity infrastructures, water networks, and military positions of the Peshmerga Forces in Duhok province.
According to an official statement by the KRSC, the "terrorist" group was planning to carry out rocket attacks in multiple targets, also including government buildings and political representation offices in Duhok province.
However, the KRSC, in cooperation with the Peshmerga forces, managed to arrest the group on May 4, 2022 in the border areas of Dohuk province. Meanwhile, the Kurdish forces also seized nine 107mm Katyusha rockets with a number of launchpads.
The statement pointed out that investigations concluded that the PKK-affiliated group had planned to launch a rocket attack against the headquarters of the Kurdistan Democratic Party's (KDP) 17th Branch, service departments, power station, Duhok Dam, and other public locations.
The KRSC also released the confession video of four detainees.
Hussein Dakhil Hassan Shebo, a Yezidi from Sinjar, confessed that the PKK had asked him to provide the armed group with geographic coordinates of designated targets in different areas, including Simel hill, from where the PKK had planned to fire two rockets at the KDP's 17th Branch.
Shebo had also been asked to send the coordinates of Shekhan dam, Duhok dam, and Esiya camp.
"They [PKK members] said that we would hide two rockets in Shariya hill, and I said Okay. I sent them pictures and coordinates of the location," Shebo added. "They said we might fire those two rockets at Doomiz power station, and with the two rockets in Esiya camp, we would most probably target the Ba'adre power station."
The PKK had also planned to destroy water and electricity networks in the IDP camps to force the displaced people to return to the villages despite their own will will and the ongoing instability in the region.
Shebo noted that he received a three-day training from a pro-Iran Hashd al-Shaabi militiaman, nicknamed Abu Ahmed, on how to launch rockets.
Other detainees speaking in the video confirmed the plans and at least one of them was part of the trainings provided by Hashd al-Shaabi’s Hezbollah of Iraq.