title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The cease-fire was revoked early, on 28 February 2011. Soon afterwards three PKK fighters were killed while trying to get into Turkey through northern Iraq. In May, counter-insurgency operations left 12 PKK fighters and 5 soldiers dead. This then resulted in major Kurdish protests across Turkey as part of a civil disobedience campaign launched by the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP), during these protests 2 people were killed, 308 injured and 2,506 arrested by Turkish authorities. The 12 June elections saw a historical performance for the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) which won 36 seats in the South-East, which was more than the ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which won only 30 seats in Kurdish areas. However, six of the 36 elected BDP deputies remain in Turkish jails as of June 2011. One of the six jailed deputies, Hatip Dicle, was then stripped of his elected position by the constitutional court, after which the 30 free MPs declared a boycott of Turkish parliament. The PKK intensified its campaign again, in July killing 20 Turkish soldiers in two weeks, during which at least 10 PKK fighters were killed. On 17 August 2011, the Turkish Armed Forces launched multiple raids against Kurdish rebels, striking 132 targets. Turkish military bombed PKK targets in northern Iraq in six days of air raids, according to General Staff, where 90–100 PKK Soldiers were killed, and at least 80 injured. From July to September Iran carried out an offensive against the PJAK in Northern Iraq, which resulted in a cease-fire on 29 September. After the cease-fire the PJAK withdrew its forces from Iran and joined with the PKK to fight Turkey. Turkish counter-terrorism operations reported a sharp increase of Iranian citizens among the insurgents killed in October and November, such as the six PJAK fighters killed in Çukurca on 28 October. On 19 October, twenty-six Turkish soldiers were killed and 18 injured in 8 simultaneous PKK attacks in Cukurca and Yuksekova, in Hakkari provieen 10,000 and 15,000 full-time, which is the highest it has ever been.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In summer 2012, the conflict with the PKK took a violent curve, in parallel with the Syrian civil war as President Bashar al-Assad ceded control of several Kurdish cities in Syria to the PYD, the Syrian affiliate of the PKK, and Turkey armed ISIS and other Islamic groups against Kurds. Turkish foreign minister Ahmet Davutoglu accused the Assad government of arming the group. In June and August there were heavy clashes in Hakkari province, described as the most violent in years. as the PKK attempted to seize control of Şemdinli and engage the Turkish army in a "frontal battle" by blocking the roads leading to the town from Iran and Iraq and setting up DShK heavy machine guns and rocket launchers on high ground to ambush Turkish motorized units that would be sent to re-take the town. However the Turkish army avoided the trap by destroying the heavy weapons from the air and using long range artillery to root out the PKK. The Turkish military declared operation was ended successfully on 11 August, claiming to have killed 115 guerrillas and lost only six soldiers and two village guards. On 20 August, eight people were killed and 66 wounded by a deadly bombing in Gaziantep. According to the KCK 400 incidents of shelling, air bombardment and armed clashes occurred in August. On 24 September, Turkish General Necdet Özel claimed that 110 Turkish soldiers and 475 PKK militants had been killed since the start of 2012.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 28 December 2012, in a television interview upon a question of whether the government had a project to solve the issue, Erdoğan said that the government was conducting negotiations with jailed rebel leader Öcalan. Negotiations were initially named as "Solution Process" (Çözüm Süreci) in public. While negotiations were going on, there were numerous events that were regarded as sabotage to derail the talks: The assassination of the PKK administrators Sakine Cansız, Fidan Doğan and Leyla Söylemez in Paris, revealing Öcalan's talks with the pro-Kurdish party Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) to the public via the "Milliyet" newspaper and finally, the bombings of the Justice Ministry of Turkey and Erdoğan's office at the Ak Party headquarters in Ankara. However, both parties vehemently condemned all three events as they occurred and stated that they were determined anyway. Finally on 21 March 2013, after months of negotiations with the Turkish Government, Abdullah Ocalan's letter to people was read both in Turkish and Kurdish during Nowruz celebrations in Diyarbakır. The letter called a cease-fire that included disarmament and withdrawal from Turkish soil and calling "an end to armed struggle". PKK announced that they would obey, stating that the year of 2013 is the year of solution either through war or through peace. Erdoğan welcomed the letter stating that concrete steps will follow PKK's withdrawal.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 25 April 2013, PKK announced that it would be withdrawing all its forces within Turkey to northern Iraq. According to the Turkish government and the Kurds and most of the press, this move marks the end of 30-year-old conflict. Second phase which includes constitutional and legal changes towards the recognition of human rights of the Kurds starts simultaneously with withdrawal.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 6 and 7 October 2014, riots erupted in various cities in Turkey for protesting the Siege of Kobane. The Kurds accused the Turkish government of supporting ISIS and not letting people send support for Kobane Kurds. Protesters were met with tear gas and water cannons. 37 people were killed in protests. During these protests, there were deadly clashes between PKK and Hizbullah sympathizers. 3 soldiers were killed by PKK in January 2015, as a sign of rising tensions in the country.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In June 2015, the main Syrian Kurdish militia, YPG, and the Turkey's main pro-Kurdish party, HDP, accused Turkey of allowing Islamic State (ISIL) soldiers to cross its border and attack the Kurdish city of Kobanî in Syria. The conflict between Turkey and PKK escalated following the 20 July 2015 Suruç bombing attack on progressive activists, which was claimed by ISIL. During the 24–25 July 2015 Operation Martyr Yalçın, Turkey bombed alleged PKK bases in Iraq and PYD bases in Syria's Kurdish region Rojava, purportedly retaliating the killing of two policeman in the town of Ceylanpınar (which the PKK denied carrying out) and effectively ending the cease-fire (after many months of increasing tensions). Turkish warplanes also bombed YPG bases in Syria.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Violence soon spread throughout Turkey. Many Kurdish businesses were destroyed by mobs. The headquarters and branches of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP) were also attacked. There are reports of civilians being killed in several Kurdish-populated towns and villages. The Council of Europe raised their concerns over the attacks on civilians and the 4 September 2015 blockade of Cizre.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: But also the Kurdish rebel fighters did not sit still: a Turkish Governor claimed that Kurdish assailants had fired on a police vehicle in Adana in September 2015, killing two officers, and some unspecified "clash" with PKK rebels purportedly took place in Hakkâri Province. President Erdogan claimed that between 23 July and late September, 150 Turkish officers and 2,000 Kurdish rebels had been killed. In December 2015, Turkish military operations in the Kurdish regions of southeastern Turkey had killed hundreds of civilians, displaced hundreds of thousands and caused massive destruction in residential areas. According to the Human Rights Watch (HRW) report, "Local human rights groups have recorded well over 100 civilian deaths and multiple injuries."


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The spring of 2016 saw the seasonal uptick in combat activity. In May, a Turkish Bell AH-1 SuperCobra helicopter was documented shot down by a PKK-fired Russian made MANPADS.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On May 6, 2016, HBDH, an umbrella organization built around the Kurdish PKK, attacked a Gendarmerie General Command base in Giresun Province in northeastern Turkey. According to news reports, a roadside bomb exploded, targeting a Gendarmerie vehicle. HDBH claimed responsibility for the attack on May 8, stating that three gendarmes died in the attack, as well as the Base Commander, who was the intended target.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: the Joint Command of the HBDH has claimed responsibility for several more attacks in the region, primarily targeting Turkish soldiers or gendarmes. The tactics employed by the alliance are very similar to those used by the PKK. The most notable attack came on 19 July 2016, just 4 days after the 2016 Turkish coup d'état attempt. HBDH reported that they had killed 11 Turkish riot police in Trabzon Province at 08:30 that morning. The HBDH report is consistent in time and location to an attack reported by Doğan News Agency, in which "unknown assailants" fired on a police checkpoint. This report states that 3 officers were killed and 5 were injured, along with a civilian.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In January 2018, the Turkish military and its Free Syrian Army and Sham Legion allies began a cross-border operation in the Kurdish-majority Afrin Canton in Northern Syria, against the Kurdish-led Democratic Union Party in Syria (PYD) and the U.S.-supported YPG Kurdish militia. In March 2018, Turkey launched military operations to eliminate the Kurdish PKK fighters in northern Iraq. This failed however, as the PKK has expanded its operations in Iraq.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In October 2019, the Turkish force launched an operation against Syrian Kurds in the Northern Syria which has been termed Operation Peace Spring.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 14 February 2021, Turkish Minister of Defense Hulusi Akar claimed that 13 soldiers and police officers, who had been held hostage by the PKK since 2015 and 2016, were executed during an attempted rescue operation. Erdoğan blamed the United States and Kurdish politicians for the failed operation, while CHP leader Kılıçdaroğlu accused Erdoğan of being responsible for the deaths. The PKK claimed the hostages were killed by Turkish airstrikes during the operation. The father of one deceased hostage Semih Özbey was summoned to identify his son, and according to the Turkish Human Rights Association president, stated he saw a bullet wound in his son's head. In an interview with Sözcü, the father noted he believed the hostages were executed, but was only shown a picture of his son's face and was refused seeing his body. He added that during his sons imprisonment he spoke repeatedly to both HDP MPs and Erdoğan to no avail. The Turkish Human Rights Association, which had previously helped return hostages from the PKK, stated their offers to help negotiate were rejected by state officials.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On the 17 April 2022, Operation Claw-Lock began involving a cross border offensive operation into Iraqi Kurdistan allegedly (PKK claim) with the support of the KDP and targeted areas including Metina, Zap and Avashin. The operation is currently ongoing.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In May 2022, while calls for Sweden and Finland were made to join the NATO alliance, Turkey opposed their adhesion unless these countries crack down on local Kurdish and Gulenist networks. The move has been commented as a political card to distract from ongoing economic crisis in Turkey and better engage in upcoming elections, taking an aggressive posture against foreign powers and Kurds being favorable to AKP. On 28 June, the first day of the 2022 NATO summit in Madrid, the Turkish delegation dropped their opposition to Finland and Sweden's NATO membership applications and signed a tripartite memorandum addressing Turkey's concerns regarding arms exports and the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. On 30 June 2022, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that Sweden had made a "promise" to extradite "73 terrorists" wanted by Turkey.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 13 November 2022, a bombing in Istanbul killed six people. Turkey says the bomb was planted by a Kurdish Syrian separatist whom they arrested. On 20 November, Turkey launched Operation Claw-Sword - airstrikes on PKK positions in Iraq and Syrian Democratic Forces positions in Syria.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The Serhildan, or people's uprising, started on 14 March 1990, Nusaybin during the funeral of 20-year-old PKK fighter Kamuran Dundar, who along with 13 other fighters was killed by the Turkish military after crossing into Turkey via Syria several days earlier. Dundar came from a Kurdish nationalist family which claimed his body and held a funeral for him in Nusaybin in which he was brought to the city's main mosque and 5000 people which held a march. On the way back the march turned violent and protesters clashed with the police, during which both sides fired upon each other and many people were injured. A curfew was then placed in Nusaybin, tanks and special forces were brought in and some 700 people were arrested. Riots spread to nearby towns and in Cizre over 15,000 people, constituting about half the town's population took part in riots in which five people were killed, 80 injured and 155 arrested. Widespread riots took place throughout the Southeast on Nowruz, the Kurdish new-year celebrations, which at the time were banned. Protests slowed down over the next two weeks as many started to stay home and Turkish forces were ordered not to intervene unless absolutely necessarily but factory sit-ins, go-slows, work boycotts and "unauthorized" strikes were still held although in protest of the state.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Protests are often held on 21 March, or Nowruz. Most notably in 1992, when thousands of protesters clashed with security forces all over the country and where the army allegedly disobeyed an order from President Suleyman Demirel not to attack the protest. In the heavy violence that ensued during that year's Nowroz protest some 55 people were killed, mainly in Şırnak (26 killed), Cizre (29 killed) and Nusaybin (14 killed) and it included a police officer and a soldier. Over 200 people were injured and another 200 were arrested. According to Governor of Şırnak, Mustafa Malay, the violence was caused by 500 to 1,500 armed rebels which he alleged, entered the town during the festival. However, he conceded that "the security forces did not establish their targets properly and caused great damage to civilian houses."


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: According to figures released by the Anadolu Agency, citing a Turkish security source, from 1984 to August 2015, there were 36,345 deaths in the conflict. This included 6,741 civilians, 7,230 security forces (5,347 soldiers, 1,466 village guards and 283 policemen) and 22,374 PKK fighters by August 2015 in Turkey alone. Among the civilian casualties, till 2012, 157 were teachers. From August 1984 to June 2007, a total of 13,327 soldiers and 7,620 civilians were said to have been wounded. About 2,500 people were said to have been killed between 1984 and 1991, while over 17,500 were killed between 1991 and 1995. The number of murders committed by Village Guards from 1985 to 1996 is put at 296 by official estimates.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Contrary to the newest estimate, earlier figures by the Turkish military put the number of PKK casualties much higher, with 26,128 PKK dead by June 2007, and 29,704 by March 2009. Between the start of the second insurgency in 2004, and March 2009, 2,462 PKK militants were claimed killed. However, later figures provided by the military for the 1984–2012 period, revised down the number of killed PKK members to 21,800.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Both the PKK and Turkish military have accused each other of civilian deaths. Since the 1970s, the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for the thousands of human rights abuses against Kurdish people. The judgments are related to systematic executions of Kurdish civilians, torturing, forced displacements, thousands of destroyed villages, arbitrary arrests, murdered and disappeared Kurdish journalists, politicians and activists. Turkey has been also condemned for killing Kurdish civilians and blaming the PKK in the ECHR (Kuskonar massacre).


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: According to human rights organisations since the beginning of the uprising 4,000 villages have been destroyed, in which between 380,000 and 1,000,000 Kurdish villagers have been forcibly evacuated from their homes, mainly by the Turkish military. According to the Los Angeles Times some 5,000 Turks and 35,000 Kurds, have been killed, 17,000 Kurds have disappeared and 119,000 Kurds have been imprisoned as a result of the conflict. According to the Humanitarian Law Project, 2,400 Kurdish villages were destroyed and 18,000 Kurds were executed, by the Turkish government. In total up to 3,000,000 people (mainly Kurds) have been displaced by the conflict, an estimated 1,000,000 of which are still internally displaced as of 2009. The Assyrian Minority was heavily affected as well, as now most (50–60 thousand/70,000) of its population is in refuge in Europe.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The Uppsala Conflict Data Program recorded 25,825–30,639 casualties to date, 22,729–25,984 of which having died during the first insurgency, 368–467 during the cease-fire and 2,728–4,188 during the second insurgency. Casualties from 1989 to 2011, according to the UCDP are as following:


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The conflict's casualties between 1984 and March 2009 according to the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey, Turkish Gendarmerie, General Directorate of Security and since then until June 2010 according to Milliyet's analysis of the data of the General Staff of the Republic of Turkey and Turkish Gendarmerie were as following:


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The Belgium-based Crisis Group keeps track of casualties linked to the Kuridsh–Turkish conflict. This data is limited to proper Turkey, and does not include casualties from preemptive operations in Syria or Iraq.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: <nowiki>*:</nowiki> mainly due to the 6–8 October 2014 Kurdish riots where 42 civilians were killed by State Forces during anti-government protests by Kurdish groups throughout Turkey. The protesters denouncing Ankara position during Islamic State's siege of Kobani. This is the main incident out of the ceasefire period.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Turkey has led strikes and several ground operations in Syria and Iraq, in order to attack groups Turkey classifies as PKK-related.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: <nowiki>*:</nowiki>these names by Turkey military or political leadership have communication / propaganda purposes


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: <nowiki>**:</nowiki> Most of Turkey's Operation Euphrates Shield combats were between TSK & TFSA against IS on one side, and between YPG against IS on the other, while the Turkish forces and US-allied YPG avoided full scale clashed. Turkey strategic objective was to prevent Afrin canton from connecting with YPG Manbij and other Rojava regions. Accordingly, only a minor part of these operations casualties were from Turkey forces vs YPG forces.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The Turkification of predominantly Kurdish areas in Turkey's East and South-East were also bound in the early ideas and policies of modern Turkish nationalism, going back to as early as 1918 to the manifesto of Turkish nationalist Ziya Gökalp "Turkification, Islamization and Modernization". The evolving Young Turk conscience adopted a specific interpretation of progressism, a trend of thought which emphasizes the human ability to make, improve and reshape human society, relying on science, technology and experimentation. This notion of social evolution was used to support and justify policies of population control. The Kurdish rebellions provided a comfortable pretext for Turkish Kemalists to implement such ideas, and in a Settlement Law was issued in 1934. It created a complex pattern of interaction between state of society, in which the regime favored its people in a distant geography, populated by locals marked as hostile.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: During the 1990s, a predominantly Kurdish-dominated Eastern and South-Eastern Turkey (Kurdistan) was depopulated due to the Kurdish–Turkish conflict. Turkey depopulated and destroyed rural settlements on a large scale, resulting in massive resettlement of a rural Kurdish population in urban areas and leading to development and re-design of population settlement schemes across the countryside. According to Dr. Joost Jongerden, Turkish settlement and re-settlement policies during the 1990s period were influenced by two different forces – the desire to expand administration to rural areas and an alternative view of urbanization, allegedly producing "Turkishness".


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: According to the Ministry of Justice, in addition to the 35,000 people killed in military campaigns, 17,500 were assassinated between 1984, when the conflict began, and 1998. An additional 1,000 people were reportedly assassinated in the first nine months of 1999. According to the Turkish press, the authors of these crimes, none of whom have been arrested, belong to groups of mercenaries working either directly or indirectly for the security agencies.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Since the 1970s, the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for thousands of human rights abuses against Kurdish people. The judgments are related to systematic executions of Kurdish civilians, forced recruitments, torturing, forced displacements, thousands of destroyed villages, arbitrary arrests, murdered and disappeared Kurdish journalists. The latest judgments are from 2014. According to David L. Philips, more than 1,500 people affiliated with the Kurdish opposition parties and organizations were murdered by unidentified assailants between 1986 and 1996. The government backed mercenaries assassinated hundreds of suspected PKK sympathizers. The Turkish government is held responsible by Turkish human rights organizations for at least 3,438 civilian deaths in the conflict between 1987 and 2000.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In November 1992, the Turkish gendarmerie officers forced the leader of the Kelekçi village to evacuate all of the inhabitants, before shooting at them and their houses with heavy weapons. The soldiers set up fire to nine houses and forced all villagers to flee. Later soldiers burned the rest of the village and destroyed all 136 houses.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 1993, Mehmet Ogut, his pregnant wife and all their seven children were burned to death by Turkish special forces soldiers. The Turkish authorities initially blamed the PKK and refused to investigate the case until it was opened again 17 years later. The investigations eventually came to an end in late 2014 with sentences of life imprisonment for three gendarme officers, a member of the special forces and nine soldiers.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In August 1993, Turkish security forces opened fire during the protest, killing 10 people and wounding 51.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 8 September 1993, the Turkish Air Force dropped a bomb near the Munzur mountains, killing 2 women. In the same year, Turkish security forces attacked the town of Lice, destroying 401 houses, 242 shops and massacring more than thirty civilians, and leaving one hundred wounded.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 26 March 1994 the Turkish military planes (F-16's) and a helicopter circled two villages and bombed them, killing 38 Kurdish civilians. The Turkish authorities blamed the PKK and took pictures of the dead children and spread in the press. The European Court of Human rights condemned Turkey to pay 2,3 million euros to the families of victims. The event is known as the Kuşkonar massacre.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 1995, Human Rights Watch reported that it was common practice for Turkish soldiers to kill Kurdish civilians and take pictures of their corpses with weapons they carried only for staging the events. Killed civilians were shown to press as PKK "terrorists".


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 1995, The European newspaper published in its front-page pictures of Turkish soldiers who posed for camera with the decapitated heads of the Kurdish PKK fighters. Kurdish fighters were beheaded by Turkish special forces soldiers.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In late March 2006, the Turkish security forces who tried to prevent the funerals of the PKK fighters clashed with the demonstrators, killing at least eight Kurdish protesters, including four children under the age of 10.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In August 2015, Amnesty International reported that the Turkish government airstrikes killed eight residents and injured at least eight others – including a child – in a flagrantly unlawful attack on the village of Zergele, in the Kandil Mountains in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 21 January 2016, a report published by Amnesty International stated that more than 150 civilians had been killed in Cizre. According to Amnesty International, the curfews had been imposed in more than 19 different towns and districts, putting the lives of hundreds of thousands of people at risk. Additionally, the report stated that the government's disproportionate restrictions on movement and other arbitrary measures were resembling collective punishment, a war crime under the 1949 Geneva Conventions.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Turkish–Kurdish human rights activists in Germany accused Turkey of using chemical weapons against PKK. Hans Baumann, a German expert on photo forgeries, investigated the authenticity of the photos and claimed that the photos were authentic. A forensics report released by the Hamburg University Hospital has backed the allegations. Claudia Roth from Germany's Green Party demanded an explanation from the Turkish government. The Turkish Foreign Ministry spokesman Selçuk Ünal commented on the issue. He said that he did not need to emphasize that the accusations were groundless. He added that Turkey signed to the Chemical Weapons Convention in 1997, and Turkey did not possess chemical weapons.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In response to the activities of the PKK, the Turkish government placed Southeastern Anatolia, where citizens of Kurdish descent are in the majority, under military rule. The Turkish Army and the Kurdish village guards loyal to it have abused Kurdish civilians, resulting in mass migrations to cities. The Government claimed that the displacement policy aimed to remove the shelter and support of the local population and consequently, the population of cities such as Diyarbakır and Cizre more than doubled. However, martial law and military rule was lifted in the last provinces in 2002.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Since its foundation, the Republic of Turkey has pursued variously assimilationist and repressive policies towards the Kurdish people. At the beginning of the conflict, the PKK's relationship with its civilian supporters created incentives for the Turkish government to use terrorism against the Kurdish citizens in the Kurdish dominated southeast region of Turkey. Since the early 1980s, the authorities have systematically used arbitrary arrests, executions of suspects, excessive force, and torture to suppress the opponents. In 1993, the report published by Human Rights Watch stated:


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: According to Human Rights Watch, the authorities even executed the Kurdish civilians and took the pictures of their corpses with the weapons, they carried for staging the events, in order to show them as Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) "terrorists" to press. In 1995, another report published by Human Rights Watch stated:


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Shooting and killing peaceful demonstrators was one of the methods the security forces used to spread fear. In 1992, the security forces killed more than 103 demonstrators, 93 of them during the celebration of Newroz in three Kurdish cities. No security force member was ever charged with any of the deaths.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In the early 1990s, hundreds of people had disappeared after they had been taken into custody by security forces. Only in 1992, more than 450 people had been reportedly killed. Among those killed were journalists, teachers, doctors, human rights activists and political leaders. The security forces usually denied to have detained the victims but sometimes they claimed that they had released the victims after "holding them briefly". According to the Human Rights Association (İHD), there have been 940 cases of enforced disappearance since the 1990s. In addition to that, more than 3,248 people who were murdered in extrajudicial killings are believed to have been buried in 253 separate burial places. On 6 January 2011, the bodies of 12 people were found in a mass grave near an old police station in Mutki, Bitlis. A few months later, three other mass graves were reportedly found in the garden of Çemişgezek police station.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 2006, the former ambassador Rouleau stated that the continuing human rights abuses of ethnic Kurds is one of the main obstacles to Turkish membership of the EU.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: During the 1990s and onward Turkish security services have detained Kurds, in some cases they were never seen again with only eyewitnesses coming forward to tell the story. In 1997, Amnesty International (AI) reported that disappearances and extrajudicial executions had emerged as new and disturbing patterns of human rights violations by the Turkish state.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The Stockholm Center for Freedom (SCF) documented eleven cases since 2016 in which people have been abducted by men identifying themselves as police officers. It appears to be mostly in the Turkish capital of Ankara as victims are forced into transit vans. Family members were unable to find out their locations from the state, indicating that they were detained secretly or by clandestine groups. In a case where one was finally located after 42 days missing, he was tortured for days, forced to sign a confession and handed over to police.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In August 1992, Human Rights Watch reported the vile practice of torture by security forces in Turkey. The victims of torture interviewed by Helsinki Watch had revealed the systematic practice of torture against detainees in police custody. Sixteen people had died in suspicious circumstances in police custody, ten of them Kurds in the Southeast.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 2013, "The Guardian" reported that the rape and torture of Kurdish prisoners in Turkey are disturbingly commonplace. According to the report, published by Amnesty International in 2003, Hamdiye Aslan, a prisoner accused of supporting the Kurdish group, the PKK, had been detained in Mardin Prison, south-east Turkey, for almost three months in which she was reportedly blindfolded, anally raped with a truncheon, threatened and mocked by officers.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In February 2017, a report published by the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights stated the Turkish authorities had beaten and punched detainees, using sexual violence, including rape and threat of rape. In some cases, the detainees were photographed nude and threatened with public humiliation after being tortured by Turkish authorities.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 24 February 1992, Cengiz Altun, the Batman correspondent for the weekly pro-Kurdish newspaper, "Yeni Ülke," was killed. More than 33 Kurdish journalists working for different newspapers were killed between 1990 and 1995. The killings of Kurdish journalists had started after the pro-Kurdish press had started to publish the first daily newspaper by the name of "Özgür Gündem" (Free Agenda). Musa Anter, a prominent Kurdish intellectual and journalist of Özgur Gundem, was assassinated by members of Gendarmerie Intelligence Organization in 1992.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 1992, Turkish security forces executed seventy-four people in house raids and more than a hundred people in demonstrations.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In October 2016, amateur footage emerged showing Turkish soldiers executing two female PKK members they had captured alive.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In February 2017, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights published a report condemning the Turkish government for carrying out systematic executions, displacing civilians, and raping and torturing detainees in Southeastern Turkey.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In October 2019, nine people were executed, including Hevrin Khalaf, a 35-year-old Kurdish woman who was secretary-general of the Future Syria Party and who worked for interfaith unity.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The Turkish state has similarly involved itself with drug trafficking through the conflict. During the Susurluk scandal in the mid-1990s, it was revealed the government of Tansu Çiller had employed contract killers from the Grey Wolves and Turkish mafia to assassinate between 2,500 and 5,000 members of and businessmen accused of supporting the PKK. Later on, state officials used the organizations to collect profits from the heroin trade, an industry larger than the state budget at the time. In 2021, the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army was reported to be planting cannabis in the countryside of Afrin, an area captured from Kurdish forces during Operation Euphrates Shield.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The Kurdistan Workers' Party has faced international condemnation for using terrorist tactics, which include kidnapping, civilian massacres, summary executions, suicide bombers, and child soldiers, and for its involvement in drug trafficking. The organization has targeted civilians, doctors, teachers, schools, hospitals, and other government institutions on a mass scale since the 1984, and is responsible for thousands of civilian deaths. The number of total civilian deaths perpetrated by the PKK between 1989 and 1999 was determined as 1,205 by the independent Uppsala One-Sided Violence Dataset. In 1999, a report published by HRW, stated that the PKK was believed to have been responsible for more than 768 executions only between 1992 and 1995. The organization had also reportedly committed 25 massacres between 1992 and 1995, killing 360 innocent people, including 39 women and 76 children. According to Nil Satana, the author of the Kurdish Issue in June 2011 Elections, PKK attacks on civilians persisted until the organization realized that these were damaging their international prestige.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In the early 1980s, Abdullah Öcalan, the organization's leader, demanded the civilians to choose between loyalty to the government and support for the PKK, which reportedly led to a campaign against civilians, doctors, nurses, Kurdish elites, government institutions, schools and even hospitals. Additionally, hundreds of schools were burned and only between 1984 and 1987, more than 217 teachers were murdered. The PKK saw schools as "emblems of Turkish imperialism" that belonged to the "colonial assimilation system" and a justification for the killing of teachers was that they taught Turkish to Kurdish children.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In the early 1990s, the organization allegedly began to bomb civilian targets and commit massacres against innocent civilians after the government refused to negotiate. According to Jessica Stanton, an associate professor in the global policy area, the shift in PKK tactics was a direct response to government behavior. Abdullah Öcalan, the organization's leader, has been claimed to have stated publicly:


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: According to Amnesty International reports in 1997, the PKK has tortured and killed Kurdish peasants and its own members that were against them in the 1980s. Dozens of Kurdish civilians have been abducted and killed because they were suspected of being collaborators or informers. According to a 1996 report by Amnesty International, "in January 1996 the [Turkish] government announced that the PKK had massacred 11 men near the remote village of Güçlükonak. Seven of the victims were members of the local village guard forces". The organization's 'suicide guerrilla teams', mainly made up of women, were responsible for 21 suicide attacks in Turkey between 1995 and 1999. The same number was 11 between the dates of 2 August 2015 and 25 August 2016.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 23 January 1987, PKK militias committed a massacre in Ortabağ, Şırnak Province killing 8 civilians including 4 women and 2 children.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 20 June 1987, the organization committed a massacre in the village of Pınarcık in the Mardin Province of Turkey, killing more than 30 people, mainly women and children.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 18 August 1987, PKK fighters massacred 14 children, including one three-day-old and one six-day-old baby, and 11 adults in Kılıçkaya village, Siirt.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 10 June 1990, a group of guerrillas raided on Çevrimli village in Şırnak's Güçlükonak district, killing more than 27 people, most of them women and children. The event is known as Çevrimli massacre.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 15 July 1991, PKK guerrillas burned nine villagers to death in their houses in the villages of Pazarcık and Çağlayancerit districts.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 25 December 1991, PKK attacked a store in the Bakırköy district with Molotov cocktails, resulting in 11 deaths, including 7 women and 1 child.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Between 1992 and 1995 the organisation has committed 25 massacres killing 360 innocent people, including 39 women and 76 children.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 22 June 1992, a group of PKK members killed fourteen villagers, nine of them children, and wounded eight others in raids on the houses of village guards in the village of Seki in Batman Province and in Guroymak in Bitlis Province.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In late June 1992, PKK militants killed five people, including a member of the village guard, in an attack on Elmasirti village in Bingöl Province.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In late September 1992, PKK militants massacred 29 civilians including many women and children in Cevizdalı village of Bitlis Province.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 24 May 1993, a group of 150 PKK militants massacred 33 unarmed recruits and 5 civilians on the Elazığ-Bingöl highway.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 21 October 1993, a group of PKK members killed 22 people, including 13 children in the yard of the school in Siirt. The incident is called Derince massacre.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 25 October 1993, 4 teachers and a 2-year-old girl were murdered by PKK militants in Yolalan, Bitlis Province.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 1998, Human Rights Watch stated in a letter to the Italian Prime Minister Massimo D'Alema that in response of Turkeys declaration of an all-out war, the PKK adapted its tactics in the following way:


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 21 January 1994, PKK militants massacred 21 people including 11 children in Savur, Mardin Province and claimed responsibility for the attack.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 1 January 1995, PKK guerrillas carried out a massacre in the Hamzali neighborhood of Kulp in Diyarbakir, killing 1 village guard and more than 20 civilians, mainly women and children. The memorial has been created for the victims in the neighborhood.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In September 1995, the PKK members raided on a mine in the Seldiren village, executing nine miners and wounding two. According to the authorities, the PKK members had threatened the miners to bring food before executing them for unknown reasons. The organization later claimed the attack in Serxwebun publication by claiming the killed miners were soldiers and 'fascists'.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: According to a 1996 report by Amnesty International, "in January 1996 the [Turkish] government announced that the PKK had massacred 11 men near the remote village of Güçlükonak. Seven of the victims were members of the local village guard forces".


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 30 June 1996, a suicide bombing targeting a group of 60 unarmed military personnel perpetrated by PKK occurred in Tunceli, killing 8 people and injuring 29 others.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 25 October 1996, a suicide bombing was carried out when a PKK member detonated the explosives she had with her in front of Adana Riot Control Police Directorate, killing 5 people including a civilian and injuring 18 others.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 29 October 1996, a suicide bombing occurred in Sivas and killed 6 people including a civilian while injuring 10 others.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 13 March 1999, 3 PKK militants poured petroleum and threw molotov cocktails at a small sized local department store in Göztepe, Istanbul, 13 civilians, mostly women and employees of the store, were killed and 5 were injured.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 22 May 2007, a PKK member Güven Akkuş carried out a suicide attack in Ulus, Altındağ killing 9 people and injuring more than 121 others, all civilians.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 22 June 2010, the TAK claimed responsibility for a bombing on a bus carrying soldiers and civilians killing 5.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 20 September 2011, 3 people died and 34 people were injured in a bomb attack in Ankara which was claimed by TAK.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 18 October 2011, a bomb planted by PKK militants exploded in Güroymak, killing five policemen and three civilians, including a child.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 17 February 2016, a car bomb perpetrated by TAK detonated in Ankara, killing 15 civilians and 14 soldiers while injuring 60 others.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 13 March 2016, a member of the TAK carried out a suicide attack in Ankara, killing more than 37 civilians.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 27 April 2016, Eser Cali, a female member of the TAK, blew herself up near an Ottoman-era mosque in the Turkish city of Bursa, wounding 13 people. Two days later, the Kurdish militant group TAK claimed the responsibility.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 10 May 2016, 3 people were killed and 33 civilians and 12 police officers were injured in a bombing in Diyarbakır perpetrated by PKK members who targeted an armored police vehicle.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 12 May 2016, a truck bombing took place in Dürümlü hamlet in Diyarbakir's Sur district. killing 16 people and injuring 23 others, all civilians. The People's Defence Forces (HPG), claimed that the truck was driven by members of the HPG, but that the explosives should have detonated elsewhere and the truck only detonated as villagers opened fire on the truck.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 7 June 2016, a bombing targeting security officers perperated by TAK occurred in central Istanbul, killing 12 people including 6 security officers and 6 civilians and injuring 51 others, three of them seriously.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 5 January 2017, PKK members detonated a car bomb outside a courthouse in Bayraklı, İzmir killing 1 civilian and 1 police officer while injuring 7 others including 3 civilians.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In its early stages, some PKK members and groups systematically recruited children, men and women by kidnapping them. This forced families whose children were already a member of the organization to cooperate and thus turning them into accomplices, which increased the number of women joining the group, according to the publication, published by the Jamestown Foundation. The systematic kidnapping of men, women and even children was at its peak between the late 1980s and early 1990s, when the PKK decided to force every family to send someone to serve their armed wings after the third Congress. Many members who had been kidnapped were described as heroes in Serxwebun, the PKK's monthly magazine, after they were killed in the clashes. Some victims like Esengul Akgul, a child soldier who had been allegedly kidnapped when she was only ten years old in 1990, were described as model 'revolutionary fighters' when they died.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In early September 1992, PKK militants kidnapped five tourists, including three Americans, two Austrians and a British, near the town of Karliova, Bingöl Province, and detained them briefly.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: A report published by Federation of American Scientists stated that the PKK's policy of forced recruitment by kidnapping has dramatically increased since the 1994. The organization has used the policy to offset its heavy losses since the early days of the conflict.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 2014, a group of Kurdish families staged a sit-in in front of the town hall in the southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakır to protest the forced recruitment of their children by PKK. After two weeks of protesting, the families started hunger strike to demand the return of their kidnapped children.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 28 May 2012, a group of militants kidnapped 10 workers working on a road construction project in Iğdır. A month later, another group of militants blocked the road between Diyarbakır and Bingöl, and kidnapped a British tourist. All of them were released later.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 1997, the State Department listed the PKK as a foreign terrorist organization for their continuous use of violence during the 1990s. On 6 November 2018, the State Department listed the PKK's three top executives, Murat Karayılan, Cemil Bayik and Duran Kalkan, in its Rewards for Justice Program which is developed by the U.S. Department of State for counter-terrorism. The program lists the names and information of the most wanted US designated terrorists in the world.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the organization, who captured power by brutally suppressing dissent and purging opponents after the PKK's third Congress, consolidated absolute power through a campaign of torture and executions he started against the closest cadres in 1980. Only in 1986, the PKK executed more than sixty of its members, including Mahsum Korkmaz, who is believed to have been murdered during the clashes on 28 March 1986. The organization also targeted the defectors and assassinated at least eight of them in the EU. Hüseyin Yıldırım, a lawyer and the PKK's former spokesman in Brussels, who broke with Öcalan and left the organization in 1987 stated:


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Many governors and other politicians of AK Party in Kurdish inhabited cities were threatened with death and forced to resign by the PKK, while many politicians who refused to resign were executed and assassinated. Only between August 2016 and October 2016, 6 AK Party politicians were murdered by the organization such as Deryan Aktert. In September 2016, AK Party governors of Doğubayazıt, Özalp and Lice resigned because of the death threats while 3 other AK Party politicians in Ergani resigned in the first week of October 2016.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In March 1984, 4 people from the same family were executed in Çukurca. Serxwebûn accused them of being informers.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 15 May 1987, İsa Karaaslan, a father of 3 children and a teacher was accused of being a spy for the Turkish Intelligence and was executed.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 21 August 1987, in Yolçatı village of Lice, teacher Asim Özmen and imam Mehmet Bayram were taken from their houses and executed. Serxwebûn accused both of them of being spies.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 17 July 1987, 5 people were executed by PKK in Şırnak Province. Serxwebûn, a publication of the PKK announced the executions and stated that executed people were all "traitors".


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 31 July 1987, Serxwebûn announced that PKK executed Hıdır Kılıçaslan in Kuyubaşı hamlet of Akören village in Hozat and accused him of being an "ungrained traitor".


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: Between 1992 and 1995, PKK carried out 768 extrajudicial executions, mostly of civil servants and teachers, political opponents, off-duty police officers and soldiers, and those deemed by the PKK to be "state supporters."


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 12 February 2006, PKK's former representative of Europe, Kani Yılmaz was assassinated by PKK via a bomb that was put into his car. Yılmaz was burned to death in the car with a former PKK militant Sabri Tori.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 27 September 2017, the organization kidnapped and executed Mahmut Bazancir who was mistakenly accused of being an informer.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: On 25 July 2018, Mevlüt Bengi, a father of 6 children, was executed and tied to an electricity tower by guerrillas, who reportedly justified the execution by accusing him of being a collaborator with the AK Party, which he had served as an election observer at the ballot boxes in his district during the 24 June elections. The HPG released a statement that it has killed Mevlüt Bengi, but for having caused serious harm to the Kurdish movement, and not for being a member of a certain party.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: According to the TEPAV think-tank which did research on the identities of 1,362 PKK fighters who lost their lives between 2001 and 2011, 42% of the recruits were under 18, with over a quarter of these being under 15 years of age at the time of recruiting. The organization is still actively recruiting child soldiers and it has been accused of abducting more than 2,000 children by Turkish Security Forces. The latest independent reports by the Human Rights Watch (HRW), the United Nations (UN) and the Amnesty International have confirmed the recruitment and use of child soldiers by the organization and its armed wings since the 1990s. The organization is also believed to have used the children in the drug trade.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 2008, a report published by Child Soldiers International stated that the PKK was believed in 1998 to have had 3,000 child soldiers in its forces based in Iraq and operating in Southeast Turkey.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: The armed wing of the PKK, signed in October 2008 a Deed of Commitment of the Geneva Call, which prohibits the employment of youth below 18 years old to be recruited. Following repeated reports in the international media about child soldiers in PKK ranks, representatives of Geneva Call visited PKK camps in order to monitor the application of the Deed of Commitment. They visited camps in which youths of the age between sixteen and eighteen would be accepted on a voluntary basis and while being there would stay away from armed conflict and be educated.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 2011, the report published by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) stated that the instability in Iraq had helped the PKK to develop and use Iraq as a transhipment point for heroin. The PKK was reported to collect taxes per kilogram of heroin trafficked to Turkey from the borders of Islamic Republic of Iran and Iraq, with potential profits reaching US$200 million annually. Another report published by European Police Office (EUROPOL) in the same year stated the organization is actively involved in money laundering, illicit drugs and human trafficking, as well as illegal immigration inside and outside the EU for funding and running its activities.


title: Kurdish–Turkish conflict (1978–present)

text: In 2012, the U.S. Department of the Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control (OFAC) announced the designation of Zeyneddin Geleri, Cerkez Akbulut (a.k.a. Cernit Murat), and Omer Boztepe as three Moldovan-based specially designated narcotics traffickers for drug trafficking on behalf of the PKK in Europe. According to the OFAC, Zeyneddin Geleri was identified as a high-ranking member of the PKK while two others were reportedly just PKK activists. The OFAC stated that the drug trafficking is one of the PKK's criminal activities it uses to obtain weapons and materials to fight the Turkish government.


title: Skink

text: Skinks are lizards belonging to the family Scincidae, a family in the infraorder Scincomorpha. With more than 1,500 described species across 100 different taxonomic genera, the family Scincidae is one of the most diverse families of lizards. Skinks are characterized by their smaller legs in comparison to typical lizards and are found in different habitats except arctic and subarctic regions.


title: Skink

text: Skinks look like lizards of the family Lacertidae (sometimes called "true lizards"), but most species of skinks have no pronounced neck and relatively small legs. Several genera (e.g., "Typhlosaurus") have no limbs at all. This is not true for all skinks, however, as some species such as the red-eyed crocodile skink have a head that is very distinguished from the body. These lizards also have legs that are relatively small proportional to their body size.


title: Skink

text: Skinks' skulls are covered by substantial bony scales, usually matching up in shape and size, while overlapping. Other genera, such as "Neoseps", have reduced limbs and fewer than five toes (digits) on each foot. In such species, their locomotion resembles that of snakes more than that of lizards with well-developed limbs. As a general rule, the longer the digits, the more arboreal the species is likely to be. A biological ratio can determine the ecological niche of a given skink species. The Scincidae ecological niche index (SENI) is a ratio based on anterior foot length at the junction of the ulna/radius-carpal bones to the longest digit divided by the snout-to-vent length.


title: Skink

text: Most species of skinks have long, tapering tails they can shed if predators grab onto them. Such species generally can regenerate the lost part of a tail, though imperfectly. A lost tail can grow back within around three to four months. Species with stumpy tails have no special regenerative abilities.


title: Skink

text: Some species of skinks are quite small; "Scincella lateralis" typically ranges from , more than half of which is the tail. Most skinks, though, are medium-sized, with snout-to-vent lengths around , although some grow larger; the Solomon Islands skink ("Corucia zebrata") is the largest known extant species and may attain a snout-to-vent length of some .


title: Skink

text: Skinks in the genus "Prasinohaema" have green blood because of a buildup of the waste product biliverdin.


title: Skink

text: The word "skink", which entered the English language around 1580–90, comes from classical Greek "skinkos" and Latin "scincus", names that referred to various specific lizards.


title: Skink

text: Skink-like lizards first appear in the fossil record about 140 million years ago, during the early Cretaceous, mostly in the form of jawbones that appear very skink-like. Definitive skink fossils appear later, during the Miocene period.


title: Skink

text: A trait apparent in many species of skink is digging and burrowing. Many spend their time underground where they are mostly safe from predators, sometimes even digging out tunnels for easy navigation. They also use their tongues to sniff the air and track their prey. When they encounter their prey, they chase it down until they corner it or manage to land a bite and then swallow it whole. They can be voracious hunters.


title: Skink

text: Skinks are generally carnivorous and in particular insectivorous. Typical prey include flies, crickets, grasshoppers, beetles, and caterpillars. Various species also eat earthworms, millipedes, centipedes, snails, slugs, isopods (woodlice etc), moths, small lizards (including geckos), and small rodents. Some species, particularly those favored as home pets, are omnivorous and have more varied diets and can be maintained on a regimen of roughly 60% vegetables/leaves/fruit and 40% meat (insects and rodents). Both species of the Genus Tristiidon are mainly frugivorous, but occasionally eat moss and insects.


title: Skink

text: Although most species of skinks are oviparous, laying eggs in clutches, some 45% of skink species are viviparous in one sense or another. Many species are ovoviviparous, the young (skinklets) developing lecithotrophically in eggs that hatch inside the mother's reproductive tract, and emerging as live births.


title: Skink

text: In some genera, however, such as "Tiliqua" and "Corucia", the young developing in the reproductive tract derive their nourishment from a mammal-like placenta attached to the female – unambiguous examples of viviparous matrotrophy. Furthermore, an example recently described in "Trachylepis ivensi" is the most extreme to date: a purely reptilian placenta directly comparable in structure and function, to a eutherian placenta.


title: Skink

text: Clearly, such vivipary repeatedly has developed independently in the evolutionary history of the Scincidae and the different examples are not ancestral to the others. In particular, placental development of whatever degree in lizards is phylogenetically analogous, rather than homologous, to functionally similar processes in mammals.


title: Skink

text: Skinks typically seek out environments protected from the elements, such as thick foliage, underneath man-made structures, and ground-level buildings such as garages and first-floor apartments. When two or more skinks are seen in a small area, it is typical to find a nest nearby. Skinks are considered to be territorial and often are seen standing in front of or "guarding" their nest area. If a nest is nearby, one can expect to see 10-30 lizards within the period of a month. In parts of the southern United States, nests are commonly found in houses and apartments, especially along the coast. The nest is where the skink lays its small white eggs, up to 4-8 at a time.


title: Skink

text: Skinks are very specific in their habitat as some can depend on vegetation while others may depend on land and the soil. As a family, skinks are cosmopolitan; species occur in a variety of habitats worldwide, apart from boreal and polar regions. Various species occur in ecosystems ranging from deserts and mountains to grasslands.


title: Skink

text: Many species are good burrowers. More species are terrestrial or fossorial (burrowing) than arboreal (tree-climbing) or aquatic species. Some are "sand swimmers", especially the desert species, such as the mole skink or sand skink in Florida. Some use a very similar action in moving through grass tussocks. Most skinks are diurnal (day-active) and typically bask on rocks or logs during the day.


title: Skink

text: Raccoons, foxes, possums, snakes, coatis, crows, cats, dogs, herons, hawks, lizards, and other predators of small land vertebrates also prey on various skinks. This can be troublesome, given the long gestation period for some skinks, making them an easy target to predators such as the mongoose, which often threaten the species to at least near extinction, such as the Anguilla Bank skink. Invasive rodents are a major threat to skinks that have been overlooked, especially tropical skinks.


title: Skink

text: Skinks are also hunted for food by indigenous peoples in New Guinea, including by the Kalam people in the highlands of Madang Province, Papua New Guinea.


title: Skink

text: Despite making up 15% of reptiles, skinks have a relatively conserved chromosome number, between 11 and 16 pairs. Skink genomes are typically about 1.5Gb, approximately 1/2 the size of the human genome. The Christmas Island blue-tailed skink ("Cryptoblepharus egeriae") was sequenced in 2022 and represents the first skink reference genome.


title: Skink

text: Skinks were long thought to have both genetic sex determination (GSD) and temperature-dependent sex determination (TSD). Despite having sex chromosomes that are not distinguishable with a microscope, all major skink lineages share an old XY system that is >80 million years old. This region is highly divergent and contains chromosomal rearrangements.


title: Skink

text: Many genera, "Mabuya" for example, are still insufficiently studied, and their systematics are at times controversial, see for example the taxonomy of the western skink, "Eumeces skiltonianus". "Mabuya" in particular, is being split, many species being allocated to new genera such as "Trachylepis", "Chioninia", and "Eutropis".


title: Humayun Saeed

text: Humayun Saeed Ansari (born 27 July 1971), professionally known as Humayun Saeed, is a Pakistani actor and producer.


title: Humayun Saeed

text: He has appeared in dozens of Pakistani television dramas and limited number of films, and earned Lux Style Awards, and ARY Film Awards. Primarily known as an actor, Saeed also runs the Six Sigma Plus media production house which produces television drama serials and commercial movies.


title: Humayun Saeed

text: Saeed attended Nasra School in Karachi where he excelled in his studies and earned the distinction throughout his academic career until matriculation.


title: Humayun Saeed

text: Later he enrolled himself at a prominent institution St. Patrick's college in Karachi and earned a bachelor's degree in commerce. Saeed stated he was happily employed at a garments factory, as a general manager, before he got into the showbiz.


title: Humayun Saeed

text: He said in an interview, that at the start of his career his parents were against him acting. They did not approve of his showbiz career. But with the passage of time, they saw his passion and started supporting him. On the other hand, he mentioned that his wife comes from a very conservative family. She initially had a lot of problems with his career of choice but now supports him.


title: Humayun Saeed

text: Saeed began his career as a television producer in the late 80s. His maiden production did not produce favorable results. After stepping into showbiz, Saeed's powerful presence caught the eye of directors and he was cast in the TV shows for acting roles. He made his acting debut in 1995 with "Karooron Ka Aadmi" produced by Nadeem Ali Khan, followed by "Ye Jahaan", a musical that was telecast in 1996. The same year he was declared best actor for his performance in "Ab Tum Ja Saktay Ho", directed by Mehreen Jabbar, in which he was cast opposite Sania Saeed and Khalida Riyasat.


title: Humayun Saeed

text: Saeed continued doing TV productions alongside. He partnered with Sultana Siddiqui in late 90s and then Abdullah Kadwani in 2000s for 7th Sky Entertainment. Later, he started his own production house along with "Shehzad Nasib" under the banner "Six Sigma Plus". Since then he has produced notable content for Pakistani television viewers.


title: Humayun Saeed

text: Saeed's initial notable TV work as an actor includes "Mehndi", "Doraha", "Kabhi Kabhi Pyar Mein", "Kaafir", "Uraan", "Hum Se Juda Na Hona", "Ladies Park" and guest roles in "Meri Zaat Zarra-e-Benishan" and "Daam".In 2005, Saeed starred in the Hadiqa Kiani's award-winning music video called "Iss Baar Milo", directed by Jami. Saeed has made appearance on reality shows like "Living on the edge" as a participant. He also judged a dancing reality show on ARY Digital in 2009. He has also worked in an Indian Bollywood movie "Jashan" in 2009 where he was given a negative role. In 2016, He gained recognition by playing Mohid in Dil Lagi among television audience. In 2020, he return to television and played the role of Danish in drama serial "Meray Paas Tum Ho", where he took all the credit of making it the best serial ever made in history of Pakistan. The drama went so far in fame that India who is known for their movies also appreciated the performance and drama storyline. On social media Indian people reacted very positively and showed their love for Humayun openly, comparing him with their topline actor Shahrukh Khan.


title: Humayun Saeed

text: In January, 2022, Saeed was cast as Dr. Hasnat Khan (known for his romantic involvement with Princess Diana), in the fifth season of "The Crown".


title: Humayun Saeed

text: Saeed made his film debut in 1999 with Samina Peerzada's movie "Inteha". He portrayed the negative role in "Inteha" and went on to receive the National Award – Best Actor – for his role in his very first film. Due to poor conditions of Pakistan Film Industry at that time, he did only limited number of movies until the revival of cinema began in 2013. He has done many movies since the resurgence of cinema in 2013. These include commercially successful films such as "Main Hoon Shahid Afridi, Bin Roye", "Jawani Phir Nahi Ani" and "Punjab Nahi Jaungi." His film "Jawani Phir Nahi Ani" holds the record of being the fourth highest-grossing Pakistani film of all time, while his another film "Punjab Nahi Jaungi" has been declared as the second highest-grossing Pakistani film of all time and the highest-grossing film of 2017 in Pakistani cinema. In 2018, he starred in film "Jawani Phir Nahi Ani 2". As of 2019, the film is the highest-grossing Pakistani film of all time. After its huge box office success, he announced three more films in an interview with "Dawn Images", saying that third film in "JPNA" franchise is in plans to be out "in two years", while he added, "we're working on two other films, one's being written by Khalil-ur-Rehman Qamar and the other by Vasay Chaudhry." In 2022, he appeared in Nadeem Baig's "London Nahi Jaunga".


title: Humayun Saeed

text: Saeed is one of the most famous Pakistani actors. He has received numerous award nominations and honours including a minimum of 5 Lux Style Awards. He received special recognition awards at Pakistan Achievement Awards "2015" UK and Europe and at fourth Hum Awards in 2016 for his invaluable contribution towards revival of Pakistani cinema. Saeed's film "Jawani Phir Nahi Ani" swept the ARY Film Awards ceremony with total of 17 awards, also earning him the award for the best male actor in a leading role. The Actor was awarded Pride of Performance by President of Pakistan on 23 March 2021.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: On December 2, 2015, a terrorist attack, consisting of a mass shooting and an attempted bombing, occurred at the Inland Regional Center in San Bernardino, California. The perpetrators, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, a married couple living in the city of Redlands, targeted a San Bernardino County Department of Public Health training event and Christmas party of about 80 employees in a rented banquet room. 14 people were killed and 22 others were seriously injured. Farook was a U.S.-born citizen of Pakistani descent, who worked as a health department employee. Malik was a Pakistani-born green card holder.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: After the shooting, the couple fled in a rented Ford Expedition SUV. Four hours later, police pursued their vehicle and killed them in a shootout, which also left two officers injured.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: According to the FBI's investigation, the perpetrators were "homegrown violent extremists" inspired by foreign terrorist groups. They were not directed by such groups and were not part of any terrorist cell or network. FBI investigators have said that Farook and Malik had become radicalized over several years prior to the attack, consuming "poison on the internet" and expressing a commitment to jihadism and martyrdom in private messages to each other. Farook and Malik had traveled to Saudi Arabia in the years before the attack. The couple had amassed a large stockpile of weapons, ammunition, and bomb-making equipment in their home.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Enrique Marquez Jr., a friend and former neighbor of Farook's, was investigated in connection with his purchase of the two rifles used in the attack. Marquez was arrested in December 2015, and later pleaded guilty to federal charges of providing material support for terrorism and making false statements in connection with the acquisition of a firearm. Marquez also admitted that, in 2011, he conspired with Farook to carry out shooting and bombing attacks, plans which were abandoned at the time. Three other people, including Farook's brother and sister-in-law, were arrested for immigration fraud in connection with a sham marriage between Marquez and Mariya Chernykh (the sister-in-law of Farook's brother). All three pleaded guilty.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The attack was the deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. since the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, and the deadliest terrorist attack to occur in the U.S. since the September 11 attacks. It was surpassed by the Orlando nightclub shooting in June 2016.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Farook and Malik left their six-month-old daughter with Farook's mother at their Redlands home the morning of the attack, saying they were going to a doctor's appointment. Farook, a health inspector for the San Bernardino County Department of Public Health, attended a departmental event at the banquet room of the Inland Regional Center. The event began as a semi-annual all-staff meeting and training event, and was in the process of transitioning into a department holiday party/luncheon when the shooting began. There were a total of 91 invited guests, with 75–80 people stated to have been in attendance.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Farook arrived at the departmental event at about 8:30a.m. and left midway through it at around 10:30a.m., leaving a backpack atop a table. Coworkers reported that Farook had been quiet for the duration of the event, and that he had been looking at his phone before his departure. He posed for photos with other coworkers.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Shortly before 11:00a.m., the event went on an unscheduled break due to a technical problem. At 10:58a.m. PST, Farook and Malik, armed with semi-automatic pistols and rifles, opened fire outside the building, killing two people. Farook entered the building a minute later, firing on those in attendance. He was followed quickly by Malik. They wore ski masks and black tactical gear (including load bearing vests holding magazines and ammunition), but not ballistic or bulletproof vests. The entire shooting took two or three minutes, during which the shooters fired more than 100 bullets before fleeing.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: During the shooting, many of those in attendance managed to escape the room and flee deeper into the building, while those who remained hid underneath tables or in bathrooms, closets, and cupboards. A bullet hit a fire sprinkler pipe, causing water to pour down the banquet room, making it difficult to see. The perpetrators moved between tables, shooting anyone who moved or made a sound. One person was struck by a bullet that tore through an interior wall, while another was shot while trying to escape through a glass door near where the shooters had entered. Three men attempted to stop one of the shooters, but all were shot; it was unclear if any of them survived. One victim was killed while shielding a coworker with his body. Some initially mistook the attack as an active shooter drill; some previous such drills had taken place in the same banquet room.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: An unidentified source told an NPR journalist that witnesses appeared to recognize Farook by his voice and build. Other witnesses easily identified one of the shooters as a female because of her slight build and tight-fitting clothes. Sources reported that Malik pledged "bay'ah" (allegiance) to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIL, on a Facebook account associated with her as the attack was underway. Later reports described the posting as being made on behalf of both shooters.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The perpetrators left three explosive devices connected to one another at the Inland Regional Center, contained inside the backpack left by Farook during the departmental event. The devices were described as pipe bombs constructed with Christmas lights and tied together, combined with a remote controlled car that was switched on. The poorly constructed devices failed to explode. Authorities believe that the pipe bombs were meant to target the emergency personnel responding to the scene. The device was hidden inside a canvas bag, and its build was similar to schematics published in Al Qaeda's "Inspire" magazine. Coworkers noticed the bag before the attack occurred, but thought that Farook would return for it and therefore did not investigate it.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: It took 3 minutes and 32 seconds for the first police unit to respond to the shooting following the initial 9-1-1 emergency call. Two police officers with the San Bernardino Police Department (SBPD) arrived almost simultaneously at 11:04a.m.; when two other SBPD officers arrived two minutes later, the four officers entered the building through the southeast side and began to search for shooters. Another team of four officers (one from SBPD and the others from the Fontana Police Department) entered the building from the northern side and joined the first team in clearing all of the first-floor rooms.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: At 11:14a.m., the San Bernardino Fire Department made a Twitter post about an emergency on the 1300 block of Waterman Avenue, with the police working to clear the scene. Roads in the area were closed to traffic. The San Bernardino SWAT team happened to be conducting its monthly training exercise a few miles away from the scene at the time of the attack, which allowed them to arrive at the scene within eleven minutes. Police used a battering ram to get into the complex. The first floor was cleared by 11:17a.m., and a secondary sweep of the building began fourteen minutes later.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: As officers searched for shooters inside the building, others aided the wounded. Probation officers initially set up a makeshift triage center near the entrance of the building, but deemed it to be too close and relocated it across the street by 11:15a.m. Because survivors were soaked from water pouring from the fire sprinkler pipe, they became slippery for officers to hold. Injured victims were carried out on blankets and chairs, as litters and tactical stretchers were unavailable at the time. An SBPD tactical medic supervised the extraction operation. It took 57 minutes to get the last of the injured to a hospital.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Ultimately, about 300 officers and agents from city, county, state, and federal agencies responded to the active-shooter event, converging on the scene as people were being evacuated. The FBI, the ATF, and the Los Angeles Police Department counter-terrorism unit were called in to assist. Police were on the lookout for a black SUV used by the perpetrators to flee the scene.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: At 5:08p.m., the explosive devices placed by Farook were discovered by an FBI SWAT officer. They were later detonated individually by a bomb squad, with the last detonation occurring at 8:37p.m. Earlier, at 11:33a.m., an abandoned roller luggage bag was found in a second-floor office and mistaken for a suspicious device, but was deemed safe by 2:22p.m. The Inland Regional Center was declared clear by authorities at 9:29p.m.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The U.S. Department of Homeland Security sent a Pilatus PC-12 surveillance aircraft to the area, which circled the skies above San Bernardino for hours, mainly in the area where the shooting took place and in areas under investigation by police, and departed after the shootout between the perpetrators and police.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Law enforcement began a search for the suspects. A witness gave Farook's name to police, who quickly learned that he had rented a black Ford Expedition EL SUV with Utah license plates four days before the attack. Based on information provided by one of Farook's neighbors, two plainclothes investigators went to the perpetrators' Redlands home on North Center Street for surveillance shortly before 3:00p.m., about four hours after the initial attack at the Inland Regional Center had begun. They spotted Farook's vehicle leaving the residence and gave chase onto the freeway at 3:08:19p.m. Officers from other agencies joined the pursuit shortly afterward.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: At least one fake explosivea metal pipe stuffed with cloth made to resemble a pipe bombwas thrown at the police during the pursuit. The SUV exited the freeway onto North Tippecanoe Avenue and briefly stopped at a stoplight, where a pursuing officer observed the perpetrators putting on tactical vests and equipping themselves with rifles. The SUV then continued onward onto East San Bernardino Avenue and entered a suburban area, where the shooter in the backseat, identified as Malik, began firing at police through the back window at 3:08:43p.m.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Eventually, at 3:09:22p.m., the SUV stopped in a neighborhood about away from the scene of the initial attack. The couple continued to exchange fire with police from inside their vehicle. Malik opened the side passenger door and shot at the first police vehicle to stop, which was about away from the SUV. Farook exited out of the driver's front door, stood between the two open doors, and opened fire on the same vehicle.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: As more officers converged, Farook walked across the street towards some homes while continuing to fire, pinning officers behind their squad cars. He intended to flank the sheriff's deputy who had first stopped. Realizing this, several officers repositioned themselves and focused their gunfire on Farook. One police officer eventually shot Farook in the right side, allowing others to flank and shoot at him. Farook fell to the ground, shot several times in the legs and upper body. He fired at the police once with a handgun as he lay wounded on the ground, injuring an officer before the gun malfunctioned. Farook was shot again several times and killed. His body was handcuffed and positioned to lie face-down afterwards.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Officers then fired on the SUV as Malik continued to shoot at them. During this exchange of gunfire, a second police officer was wounded. Using a police cruiser as cover, officers fired into the back of the SUV while rescuing the wounded officer and a second one. At 3:14:53p.m., Malik was killed by several bullets that struck her in the body and head.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The gunfire lasted for around five minutes before both perpetrators were killed. Police used BearCat armored personnel carriers in confronting the shooters. Because authorities feared that the vehicle could contain explosives, the "Rook"—a motorized battering ram with a protective shield—was used to investigate the SUV.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The sheriff's department confirmed that a man and a woman were killed. Seven police agencies were involved in the final shootout, with 23 officers firing a combined total of at least 440 rounds. The perpetrators fired at least 81 rounds. During the shootout, police asked residents to stay indoors. Nearly 2,500 rounds of .223-caliber and 9mm ammunition were recovered from the vehicle, along with medical supplies and a trigger apparatus believed to be for the explosives left behind at the Inland Regional Center.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: In the Inland Regional Center attack, 14 civilians were killed. They ranged in age from 26 to 60. Nine were residents of San Bernardino County, five from nearby Riverside, Los Angeles, and Orange counties. Three (Isaac Amanios, Bennetta Betbadal, and Tin Nguyen) were refugees from Eritrea, Iran, and Vietnam, respectively. Thirteen were county employees; ten were environmental health inspectors, comprising about a quarter of that department's workforce.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: According to autopsy reports released on May 27, 2016, all died from multiple gunshot wounds, mostly to their backs. Twelve died almost immediately. Shannon Johnson and Bennetta Betbadal later died at a makeshift triage center across the street from the Inland Regional Center.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The attack injured 22 civilians, some seriously and some shot. Several were hospitalized about 15 minutes after leaving the building. Five went to nearby Loma Linda University Medical Center and six to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center. The last discharged was from Loma Linda on March 3, 2016.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: One police officer was shot during the gunfight, and one was injured by flying glass or shrapnel. Both were struck in the thigh; one realized he was hit thirteen hours later.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: After the attack, police identified married couple Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik as the perpetrators. They used two illegally transferred .223-caliber semi-automatic rifles which had been modified to defeat California's magazine release requirements, two 9 mm caliber semi-automatic pistols, and an improvised explosive device in the attack. Neither shooter had a criminal record, and neither was on Terrorist Screening Database lists. "The New York Times" reported that "by all accounts so far, the government had no concrete intelligence warning of the assault," although the federal government has long feared "homegrown, self-radicalized individuals operating undetected before striking one of many soft targets" in the United States.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: On December 3, 2015, the FBI took over as the leading federal law enforcement agency on the case, treating the probe as a counter-terrorism investigation. The FBI conducted a "massive" investigation, and by December 7, 2015, had already conducted about 400 interviews and collected about 320 pieces of evidence. On January 5, 2016, the FBI began investigating what the perpetrators' activities were during an 18-minute period from 12:59p.m. to 1:17p.m. on the day of the shooting, and they appealed to the public for assistance. Investigators believe that the two were driving around the city in an apparent attempt to remotely detonate the explosive device they left behind at the scene of the attack.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The investigation found that the perpetrators were inspired by terrorists and terrorist organizations. In Senate Judiciary Committee testimony given on December 9, 2015, FBI Director James B. Comey said that they "were talking to each other about jihad and martyrdom," before their engagement and as early as the end of 2013. They reportedly spent at least a year preparing for the attack, including taking target practice and making plans to take care of their child and Farook's mother. Comey has said that although the investigation has shown that the couple was radicalized and possibly inspired by foreign terrorist organizations, there is no indication that they were directed by such a group or part of a broader cell or network.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: On December 16, 2015, Comey said, "We can see from our investigation that in late 2013, before there is a physical meeting of these two people [Farook and Malik] resulting in their engagement and then journey to the United States, they are communicating online, showing signs in that communication of their joint commitment to jihadism and to martyrdom. Those communications are direct, private messages." Comey said that the FBI's investigation had revealed that the perpetrators were "consuming poison on the Internet" and both had become radicalized "before they started courting or dating each other online" and "before the emergence of ISIL." As a result, Comey said that "untangling the motivations of which particular terrorist propaganda motivated in what way remains a challenge in these investigations, and our work is ongoing there."


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: In one Arabic-language online radio broadcast, ISIL described the perpetrators as "supporters" following the attack. During the police investigation into the attack, "The New York Times" reported that this language indicated "a less direct connection" between the shooters and the terrorist group. In a December 5, 2015, English-language broadcast on its Bayan radio station, ISIL referred to the couple as "soldiers of the caliphate", which is a phrase ISIL uses to denote members of the terrorist organization. "The New York Times" reported that it was unclear why the two versions differed.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: On December 1, 2016, nearly one year after the attack, authorities speculated on Farook's forced participation in the training event and Christmas party as the trigger. Newly discovered emails indicated that Malik had objected to the party and did not want her husband to participate. San Bernardino Police Chief Jarrod Burguan said in an interview with ABC News that Malik stated that "she didn't think that a Muslim should have to participate in a non-Muslim holiday or event" in an online account.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: After the deaths of the perpetrators, the focus shifted to a small townhouse in Redlands, a few miles away from San Bernardino; the place where Farook and Malik met after the shooting and where they lived. By 6:00 p.m. PST on December 2, 2015, police were executing a search warrant on the house. According to the San Bernardino police chief, Farook and Malik were listed in the rental agreement. Police used robots to search the house. Investigators found 2,000 9-mm handgun rounds, 2,500 .223-caliber rounds, and the tools that could be used to make improvised explosive devices. The FBI also initially reported that it had removed twelve pipe bombs from the perpetrators' home; the FBI clarified several days later that it had recovered 19 types of pipes that could be converted into bombs from the home.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) was able to complete an "urgent trace" on the firearms less than two hours after the guns were recovered.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The couple was not completely successful in destroying their personal electronics, including mobile phones and hard drives, prior to the attack.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Pursuant to a federal search warrant, the authorities also searched a townhouse in Corona twice, where Farook's brother and father lived. The FBI said that the family was cooperating and authorities did not arrest anyone.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: On December 10, 2015, federal authorities began searching Seccombe Lake park in downtown San Bernardino after receiving a tip that the shooters visited the area on the day of the attack. A dive team was sent into the shallow edge of the lake to search for evidence; nothing relevant was found.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: After the FBI completed a search of the perpetrators' townhouse, it was turned over to its landlord. On December 4, 2015, the landlord used a crowbar to open the door to the home and allowed reporters and photographers to "swarm" the home. NBC News correspondent Kerry Sanders said that "Inside Edition" paid the building's landlord to access the home. MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News all broadcast live video from the home, showing images of personal photographs, documents, identification cards, and baby items.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The scene was described as having a "media circus" atmosphere. Sanders, in particular, was criticized for showing close-up images of children's photographs and Farook's mother's identification card; the network later said it regretted doing so. According to legal experts, the broadcast was not illegal, but it raised concerns about journalistic ethics. "The Washington Post" media critic Erik Wemple wrote that the media's behavior was "terrible" and opined that "this was a story poorly suited to live coverage, without the time and ability to document a scene, determine what's relevant and provide the filtered product to readers." Al Tompkins of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies said that the decision to enter the apartment was "ludicrous" and critiqued the "callous and competitive behavior" of the media on a grave story.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: On February 9, 2016, the FBI announced that it was unable to unlock one of the mobile phones they had recovered because of the phone's advanced security features. The phone was an iPhone 5C owned by the county and issued to its employee, the shooter Farook. The FBI first asked the National Security Agency to break into the phone, but the NSA was unable to do so. As a result, the FBI asked Apple Inc. to create a new version of the phone's iOS operating system that could be installed and run in the phone's random access memory to disable certain security features. Apple declined due to its policy to never undermine the security features of its products. The FBI responded by successfully applying to a United States magistrate judge, Sherri Pym, to issue a court order, mandating Apple to create and provide the requested software. The order was not a subpoena, but rather was issued under the All Writs Act of 1789.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Apple announced their intent to oppose the order, citing the security risks that the creation of a backdoor would pose towards its customers. It also stated that no government had ever asked for similar access. The company was given until February 26, 2016, to fully respond to the court order.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: In response to the opposition, on February 19, 2016, the U.S. Department of Justice filed a new application urging a federal judge to compel Apple to comply with the order. The new application stated that the company could install the malware on the phone in its own premises, and after the FBI had hacked the phone via remote connection, Apple could remove and destroy the malware.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The same day, Apple revealed that it had discussed with the FBI four methods to access data in the iPhone in early January, but one of the more promising methods was ruled out by a mistake during the investigation of the attack. After the shooter's phone had been recovered, the FBI asked San Bernardino County, the owner of the phone, to reset the password to the shooter's iCloud account in order to acquire data from the iCloud backup. However, this rendered the phone unable to back up recent data to iCloud unless its passcode is entered. This was confirmed by the Department of Justice, which then added that any backup would have been "insufficient" because they would not have been able to recover enough information from it.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: The San Bernardino County District Attorney, Michael Ramos, filed a brief claiming the iPhone may contain evidence of a possible third shooter and a "dormant cyber pathogen" that could have been introduced into the San Bernardino County computer network.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: On March 28, the Department of Justice announced that it had unlocked the iPhone and withdrew its suit. Initial reports, citing anonymous sources, stated that Israeli company Cellebrite was assisting the FBI with this alternative. However, "The Washington Post", citing anonymous sources, reported that the FBI instead paid "professional hackers" who used a zero-day vulnerability in the iPhone's software to bypass its ten-try limitation, and did not need Cellebrite's assistance. In April 2021, "The Washington Post" reported that the Australian company Azimuth Security, a white hat hacking firm, had been the one to help the FBI.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: In September 2016, the Associated Press, Vice Media, and Gannett (the owner of "USA Today") filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the FBI, seeking to compel the agency to reveal who it hired to unlock Farook's iPhone, and how much was paid. On September 30, 2017, a federal court ruled against the media organizations and granted summary judgment in the government's favor. The court ruled that the company that hacked the iPhone and the amount paid to it by the FBI were national security secrets and "intelligence sources or methods" that are exempt from disclosure under FOIA; the court additionally ruled that the amount paid "reflects a confidential law enforcement technique or procedure" that also falls under a FOIA exemption.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: National reactions to Apple's opposition of the order were mixed. A CBS News poll that sampled 1,022 Americans found that 50% of the respondents supported the FBI's stance, while 45% supported Apple's stance.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: In March 2018, the Los Angeles Times reported that "the FBI eventually found that Farook's phone had information only about work and revealed nothing about the plot."


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Initial news reports and witness accounts following the attack led to a search for up to three shooters, but police eventually determined that there were only two since only two firearms were used in the attack according to ballistics evidence.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Immediately following the shootout that killed the perpetrators, investigators in armored vehicles at the perpetrators' townhouse considered ordering an evacuation, but instead ordered the neighborhood to shelter in place and cordoned off the area. From 4:00 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., police asked residents of the area to stay in their homes with doors locked and secure after residents reported a person jumping fences. No one was found; the reports may have been from officers at the scene. A person detained after running away from the scene of the shootout was thought to be a possible third suspect, but police determined that he was not connected to the shooting; the person was booked on an unrelated outstanding misdemeanor warrant.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: On February 18, 2016, the FBI revealed that they have not ruled out the possibility of a third shooter, but clarified that they are continuing to operate under the assumption that only two shooters were involved. Some witnesses who claimed to have seen three gunmen at the Inland Regional Center continued to assert their accounts. As of December 1, 2016, it was reported that the FBI has yet to rule out that possibility.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Enrique Marquez Jr., a next-door neighbor of Farook's until May 2015, and who is related to him by an immigration fraud sham marriage, was investigated in connection with his purchase of the two rifles used in the attack, a charge to which he agreed to plead guilty. There is no record of a transfer of the weapons from Marquez to the attackers.


title: 2015 San Bernardino attack

text: Marquez converted to Islam in 2007. Though not regularly, Marquez attended both the Islamic Center of Riverside and the Islamic Society of Corona-Norco four or five years before the attack, and stood out because of his Hispanic background.