Britain’s shame: supplying a crucial component enabling Turkey to bomb its own citizens

In March, after a break of 17 months of relative peace, a Turkish fighter jet struck military positions of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Saida village in Ain Issa countryside … causing loud explosions (Arab News).

The Jerusalem Post reports that Turkish forces destroyed a church and several buildings in a bombing raid on a Christian village in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region and at least three villages have been abandoned due to the incessant bombing, with the last four families leaving Edine on Tuesday.

It records that Turkey’s bombardments have badly damaged at least 610 acres of land and green space in Duhok province so far this year. More than 152,000 acres of forest have been burnt in Iraqi Kurdistan Region in the past 10 years, with at least 35 per cent of the destruction due to aerial bombing by the Turkish and Iranian militaries, according to the authorities.

Kurdish leaders have appealed to the international community to speak out against Turkey’s military action, which the Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) insists is backed by NATO, the United States and the European Union.

Steve Sweeney points out that Turkey is the only country to use drones on its own citizens, with missile strikes from UAVs having claimed the lives of at least 400 people in south-east Turkey since 2016.

He spent eight days in the Makhmur refugee camp, abandoned by the UN and targeted by the Turkish state and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) because a large number of its residents are supporters of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)

“It was an almost daily noise hovering over the camp, loud enough to stir me from my sleep in the early hours of the morning, the time that Turkey usually likes to open fire”.

Turkey’s fleet of armed drones has been supplied with British components that enable it to fire precision missiles, made with the support of the British government and British-based arms development companies.

The development of its TB2 Bayraktar armed drone is said to be one of the world’s most advanced UAV systems in its class. It incorporates the Hornet missile rack (left) devised and supplied by EDO MBM Technology, located on the outskirts of Brighton. This “intelligent hand” ensures that the missiles fired from an armed drone reach its target co-ordinates.

An article in Jane’s Defence Review from May 2016 shows that the Hornet was supplied to the Bayraktar TB2’s manufacturer Baykar at the crucial initial development stage.

Though company director Selcuk Bayraktar, tweeted that Baykar no longer uses the British bomb rack, having manufactured this component in Turkey, his tweet was removed after a November 2020 report by the Armenian National Council of America (ANCA) showed photographs of the Hornet bomb rack attached to a Turkish drone downed in the conflict.

The British government should immediately prohibit these and all other ‘defence’ exports to countries using imported armaments to attack.

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