Local authorities and news outlets in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region have said that several people were killed in a Turkish drone strike on Friday, including two journalists.

In an initial statement on Friday, the regional authorities said that a car belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was struck near the city of Sulaymaniyah, killing a senior PKK official, his guard and his driver.

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However, a later statement by the Kurdistan regional government’s Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani said that the attack targeted a group of journalists, two of whom were killed.

“They were two women journalists, not members of an armed force to be a threat to the security and stability of any country or region,” Talabani said in a statement.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a press advocacy organisation, also released a statement denouncing the deaths of the two journalists, identified as 27-year-old Hero Baha’uddin and 40-year-old Golestan Tara from Sterk TV.

It also mentioned a third journalist from the same outlet, Rebin Baker, was injured as they travelled together. Jonathan Dagher, the head of RSF’s Middle East bureau, noted that Friday’s attack followed another drone strike on July 8 that killed one journalist and hurt another.

“With three media professionals killed in just two months, the autonomous region of Iraqi Kurdistan is becoming one of the most dangerous zones in the world for journalists,” he said in a statement.

Turkey has denied responsibility for Friday’s drone strike, according to the news outlet AFP.

However, the country regularly carries out attacks in northern Iraq targeting the PKK, which Ankara considers a “terrorist” organisation.

Earlier on Friday, the Turkish foreign ministry released a statement claiming to have “neutralised” 16 PKK members in parts of northern Iraq. However, AFP reported that Turkey’s defence ministry said that the attack in Sulaymaniyah was “not the Turkish army”.

Roj News, a local media outlet, reported that the two slain journalists worked for a Kurdish publication in the area. The outlet said that six other reporters were injured in the attack with “varying degrees of severity”.

“The killing was unjustified, violated all international laws and norms, and was a clear breach of the country’s sovereignty,” Talabani added in his statement.

Karouan Anwar, head of the Sulaymaniyah journalists’ union, stated that those killed were “known to work in the world of journalism and the media”.

Earlier this week, RSF released a report expressing alarm over what it called a “surge in violence” against media workers in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region.

The RSF report says that “various actors” have committed abuses against press freedom, with October elections between pro- and anti-Turkish factions contributing to growing tensions.

“Journalists in Iraqi Kurdistan must be able to work in complete safety, at a time when political rivalries are peaking,” Dagher said in the report.

The PKK, which launched an armed insurgency against Turkey in the 1980s in a bid to gain a Kurdish state, has bases of operation in northern Iraq. It has since moderated its demands.

Still, Turkey considers the PKK’s installations a national security threat and has consistently carried out operations targeting the group’s infrastructure in the Kurdish region.