Erbil (Kurdistan Chronicle) — On Monday, a Turkish drone targeted a vehicle around Sinjar and killed three Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters, according to the Kurdistan Region's Counter-Terrorism Unit.

"At 12:10 p.m., a Turkish military drone targeted a vehicle of the Sinjar Resistance Units (YBS) in Khansur of the Sinjar district, leaving a military commander and two others killed," the statement reads.

The Kurdistan Counter-Terrorism Unit also published two photographs of a burning pickup truck, claiming it belonged to the Kurdish fighters targeted by the Turkish airstrike.

Turkey has not yet claimed responsibility.

YBS is known as the offspring of the PKK in predominantly Yezidi areas. Turkey sees all groups affiliated with the PKK in Iraq and Syria as "terrorist organizations" and, therefore, a threat to its national security.

Turkey and the PKK have been in a decades-long armed conflict that has left tens of thousands killed and many more injured or displaced. The sides previously entered a peace process in 2013 in hopes of permanently ending the prolonged bloodshed, but the ceasefire collapsed in 2015 after the Ceylanpınar incidents, in which the PKK killed two Turkish policemen, accusing them to have collaborated with the Islamic State (IS) in the Suruç bombing, Shanliurfa.

In recent years, however, Turkey has resorted to aerial warfare rather than ground operations to limit the PKK's military capacity by using its large fleet of domestically made drones.

The conflict between the sides has also affected the border security of the Kurdistan Region, whose government repeatedly calls for the withdrawal of all fighters and for not exploiting Kurdistan territories to settle their disputes.