Nightfall in Rabatkeh
As nighttime fell on Oct. 23, Khushaba Oshana, 39, and his family huddled in their living room in the northern Iraqi village of Rabatkeh, bracing for Turkish airstrikes.
Six hundred miles away, an explosion and gunfire had rocked an aerospace facility near Turkey’s capital, killing at least 5 people and injuring 22.
Turkey’s Defense Minister, Yasar Guler, quickly identified the culprits: the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.
“We give these dishonorable PKK members the punishment they deserve every time, yet they never learn,” Guler told reporters. “We will not give up until the last terrorist is found, and we will retaliate.”
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Turkey and the United States classify the PKK as a terrorist organization. Its militants hideout in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq and Syria — often near Assyrian villages.
In the hours after the Ankara attack, Oshana and his family feared Turkey’s retaliation against the PKK, and debated fleeing Rabatkeh for Duhok.
But they chose to stay, unwilling to abandon their elderly neighbors and fearful that leaving would invite local Kurds to seize their land or loot their homes and churches.
“Although we were afraid, scared, and we knew they were going to strike the area, we had to stay and protect the village,” Oshana said.
The Ankara attack and swift retaliation
The Ankara attack marked the latest escalation in a decades-long conflict between Turkey and the PKK.
Authorities said the assailants — a man and woman — commandeered a taxi, killed its driver, and detonated explosives at Turkish Aerospace Industries, a major state-run defense company.
“This is one of the biggest, largest defense companies in the country,” Ragip Soylu, Turkey bureau chief for Middle East Eye, told CNN. “It’s producing armed drones and fighter jets.”
Turkey responded swiftly. That evening, its Defense Ministry said it had struck more than 30 targets across Iraq and Syria. The attacks continued into Thursday, with a security official confirming the deployment of armed drones. By Friday, the ministry reported killing seven PKK militants in Iraq and eleven in Syria.
The PKK later claimed responsibility, calling the Ankara attack an “act of sacrifice” carried out by a unit it described on Telegram as “the immortals battalion.”
Fear in the Nahla Valley
By 10 p.m. local time, the screech of warplanes reached Rabatkeh.
“What scares you more is you hear the sound of the jets first,” Oshana said. “When you hear this sound, you expect they’re going to bomb, but you don’t know where. That’s what keeps you stressed.”
Rabatkeh lies in the mountainous Nahla Valley, home to eight Assyrian villages and roughly 800 people.
Tucked along the valley’s outermost edge, the village hosts one of only two civilian checkpoints in or out of this stretch of land. Beyond its borders, jagged rock formations and steep cliffs provide ample cover for PKK fighters. Yet inside these granite walls, places to hide are few and far between.
“We don’t have bunkers,” Oshana said. “If you stay in the room, there are windows, big windows. And you don’t know where the rockets will come from, so we do our best to squeeze ourselves between two walls. If you go between the room and the toilet, there is a narrow corridor. We do our best to stay there.”
On Wednesday, Oshana counted four blasts roughly 200 meters from his home. One explosion blew open his front door.
Life under airstrikes
Turkish strikes are nothing new in Rabatkeh. Three months earlier, Ramsina Zaya, 16, had just sat down for lunch when her house shook from a nearby explosion.
She ran outside and recorded the damage: roaring flames ripping through farmland and smoke billowing across the valley.
Her phone is full of similar footage — cracking airstrikes, clouds of smoke, damaged churches and homes, and scorched fields.
Zaya said she’s regularly heard Turkish bombs since moving to Rabatkeh eight years ago. Typically, she hears two strikes in quick succession, but sometimes as many as seven. In several cases, her windows have shattered.
Support from Baghdad or the Kurdistan Regional Government rarely arrives, locals said. Instead, they rely on one another and on donations from Assyrians abroad to repair damage and extinguish fires.
A community holding on
Renia Abram Betow, 29, is one of about 25 men in Rabatkeh and neighboring villages mobilized at a moment’s notice to extinguish fires sparked by the strikes.
Equipped with firefighting backpacks, the men split into groups. Some, like Betow, bring their own gear. Others borrow equipment to clear brush to slow the fire’s spread or to beat back flames with blankets or clothing.
The airstrikes are pushing locals to flee for Duhok or overseas. Betow admits he loves Nahla, but he is preparing to move to Canada to join his family.
He isn’t alone. A few years ago, Zaya estimates, at least 16 families lived year-round in Rabatkeh. Today, only three remain.