Turkey is building military bases on Iraqi territory, the BBC reveals, sparking fears of occupation.
Nestled in the mountains of Iraqi Kurdistan is the picturesque village of Sergele.
For generations, villagers like Shervan Sergeli have survived by growing pomegranates, almonds and peaches and picking wild fruits and spices in the nearby forests.
But Sergele, located 16 kilometers from the border with Turkey, is increasingly surrounded by Turkish military bases, which line the slopes.
One, located halfway to the top of the western ridge, looms over the village, while the other to the east is under construction.
At least seven have been built here in the past two years, including one next to a small dam that regulates Sergele's water supply, effectively making it inaccessible to villagers.
"This is a 50 percent form of occupation of Kurdish territory in Iraqi Kurdistan," says Sherwan (XNUMX), who has lost access to part of his own land.
"The Turks destroyed it."
Sergele is now in danger of being drawn into what is known to locals as the "No-Go Zone" - a large swath of land in northern Iraq affected by Turkey's war with the Kurdish extremist group PKK, which rose up insurgents in southern Turkey in 1984.
The no-go zone stretches almost the entire length of Iraq's border with Turkey, and in some places is 40 kilometers deep.
Community Peacekeeping Teams, a humanitarian rights group from Iraqi Kurdistan, says drones and airstrikes in and around the No-Go Zone have killed hundreds of civilians.
According to a 2020 Kurdish parliamentary report, thousands were forced to flee their own country, their villages emptied due to the conflict.
Sergele is now practically on the front line of Turkey's war with the PKK.
When the BBC World Service's Investigative Eye team visited the area, Turkish aircraft were pounding the mountains around the village to flush out PKK extremists, who have long operated from caves and tunnels in northern Iraq.
Much of the land around Sergele was burned in the shelling.
"The more bases they build, the worse it gets for us," says Šervan.
Turkey has been rapidly increasing its military presence in the No-Go Zone in recent years, but until now the extent of this expansion has not been publicly known.
Using satellite imagery assessed by experts, and based on direct reporting from the ground and publicly available content, the BBC found that, as of December 2024, the Turkish military had erected at least 136 fixed military installations across northern Iraq.
Through this endless network of military bases, Turkey holds de facto control over more than 2.000 square kilometers of Iraqi territory, a BBC analysis has shown.
Satellite images further reveal that the Turkish military has built at least 660 kilometers of roads connecting these facilities.
These supply routes were created as a result of deforestation and have left a permanent mark on the mountains in this region.
And while several bases date back to the 89s, 2018 percent were built after XNUMX, when Turkey began significantly expanding its military presence in Iraqi Kurdistan.
The Turkish government did not respond to a BBC request for interviews, but has maintained that its military bases are necessary to suppress the PKK, which Ankara and a number of Western countries, including Britain, have declared a terrorist organization.
The capital of the subdistrict of Kani Masi, which is just four kilometers from the Iraqi-Turkish border and parts of which are in the Forbidden Zone, could indicate what awaits Sergele in the future.
Once famous for its apple growing, now there are very few residents left.
Farmer Salam Sayid, whose land is in the shadow of a large Turkish base, has been unable to cultivate his vineyard for the past three years.
"As soon as you get here, the drone starts hovering above you," he tells the BBC.
"They'll shoot you if you stay."
The Turkish military first settled here in the 1990s and has been consolidating its presence ever since.
Its main military base, with all-concrete fortified walls, watch and communication towers, and space for armored personnel carriers to dock, is much more developed than the smaller outposts around Sergele.
Salam, like some other locals, believes that Turkey ultimately wants to claim the territory for itself.
"They just want us to leave these parts," he adds.
A little power
Near Qani Masi, the BBC witnessed first-hand how Turkish forces were practically pushing back the Iraqi Border Force, responsible for protecting Iraq's international borders.
In several locations, border guards have taken up positions deep in Iraqi territory, directly across from Turkish troops, who cannot approach the border directly and potentially risk conflict.
"The positions you see are Turkish positions," says General Farhad Mahmud, pointing to a ridge across the valley, about 10 kilometers inside Iraqi territory.
But "we can't get to the point where we know the exact number of these positions," he adds.
The expansion of the Turkish military in Iraqi Kurdistan, fueled by its rise as a drone force and an increasing budget allocated to defense, is seen as part of a broader foreign policy shift toward greater interventionism in the region.
Similar to operations in Iraq, Turkey has also attempted to establish a buffer zone along its border with Syria to contain Syrian armed groups allied with the PKK.
Publicly, the Iraqi government condemns the presence of the Turkish military in the country.
But behind closed doors, she is complying with some of Ankara's demands.
The two sides signed a memorandum of understanding in 2024 to jointly fight the PKK.
But the document, which the BBC has seen, did not set any restrictions on Turkish troops in Iraq.
Iraq depends on Turkey for trade, investment and water supplies, while its shaky domestic politics further hinder the government from taking a firm stance.
The Iraqi national government did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
Meanwhile, the rulers of semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan have close relations with Ankara based on shared interests and have often mitigated civilian harm from Turkish military action.
The Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), the PKK's arch-enemy, dominates the Kurdistan Regional Government (KRG) and has been officially in power since 2005, when the Iraqi constitution granted the region its semi-autonomous status.
The KDP's close ties with Turkey have contributed to the region's economic success and strengthened its position, both against its regional political rivals and with the Iraqi government in Baghdad, with which it is fighting for greater autonomy.
Hoshyar Zebari, a senior member of the KDP's politburo, blamed the PKK for the Turkish presence in Iraqi Kurdistan.
"The Turkish military does not want to harm our people," he told the BBC.
"They're not imprisoning him. They're not stopping him from doing his job. Their focus, their only goal, is the PKK."
The conflict shows no signs of abating, despite the long-time imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan calling on his own fighters to lay down their arms and disband in February.
Turkey has continued to shell targets across Iraqi Kurdistan, while the PKK claimed responsibility for shooting down a Turkish drone last month.
And while the number of violent incidents in Turkey has fallen since 2016, according to calculations by the NGO Crisis Group, those in Iraq have meanwhile soared, and civilians living on the border have begun to face an increasing risk of death and displacement.
One of those killed was 24-year-old Alan Ismail, a stage four cancer patient who was hit in an airstrike in August 2023 while on his way to the mountains with his cousin Hashem Shake.
The Turkish military denied carrying out the attack that day, but a police report seen by the BBC attributed the incident to a Turkish drone.
When Hashem filed a complaint with a local court regarding the attack, he was detained by Kurdish security forces and held for eight months on suspicion of supporting the PKK, which he and his family deny.
"It destroyed us. It was like they killed our whole family," says Ismail Čiču, Alan's father.
"The Turks have no right to kill people in their own country, on their own territory."
The Turkish Ministry of Defense did not respond to the BBC's request for comment.
It previously told the media that the Turkish armed forces respect international law, and that in planning and carrying out their operations they only target terrorists, while at the same time taking care not to harm civilians.
The BBC has seen documents suggesting that Kurdish authorities helped Turkey evade responsibility for civilian casualties.
Confidential files seen by the BBC show that a Kurdish court has closed the investigation into Alan's murder, saying the perpetrator is unknown.
And his death certificate, issued by Kurdish authorities and seen by the BBC, says he died from "explosive fragments."
Failing to mention that the victims of the airstrikes died as a result of violence rather than an accident makes it difficult for the families to demand the justice and compensation to which they are entitled under both Iraqi and Kurdish law.
"On most death certificates, they just write 'infijar', which means explosion," says Kamaran Othman of the Community Peacekeeping Teams.
"Anything can explode."
"I don't think the Kurdish regional government wants to hold Turkey accountable for what it's doing here."
The KRG said that a "number of victims" of the conflict between Turkey and the PKK were documented as "civilian martyrs," meaning they were unjustly killed and entitled to compensation.
Almost two years after Alan's death, his family is still waiting, if not for compensation, then at least for recognition from the KRG.
"They could at least express their condolences - we don't need their compensation," says Ismail.
"When something is gone, it's gone forever."
Watch the video: Why women are self-immolating in Iraqi Kurdistan
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