Turkey’s Air Force has struck Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria in apparent retaliation for an attack on a key state-run defence company that killed five people and wounded more than 20.

On Thursday, the Ministry of National Defence said 47 targets were “destroyed” in the aerial offensive on Wednesday, without providing details on the locations that were hit. It said “all kinds of precautions” were taken to prevent civilian harm.

Defence Minister Yasar Guler said Turkish forces struck 29 targets in northern Iraq and 18 in northern Syria.

The United States-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Thursday that Turkish air attacks in northern and eastern Syria killed 12 civilians, including two children, and wounded 25 people.

Spearheaded by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and including Arab fighters, the SDF has been a major partner for the US-led coalition against ISIL (ISIS). It controls a quarter of Syria, including oil fields and areas where some 900 US soldiers are deployed.

Turkey says the YPG is a terrorist organisation that is closely tied to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which it blames for an attack on Wednesday in which fighters set off explosives and opened fire at the aerospace and defence company TUSAS, near the capital Ankara, that designs and manufactures civilian and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and other defence industry and space systems.

The Turkish Defence Ministry said “59 militants … were neutralised, a term usually used to mean killed, in the strikes.

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X that Turkish investigators had identified one of the attackers as a “PKK terrorist” codenamed “Rojger” and a woman called Mine Sevjin Alcicek.

Guler also pointed a finger at the PKK. “We will pursue them until the last terrorist is eliminated,” he said on Wednesday.

At a memorial ceremony at a defence industry fair in Istanbul on Thursday, Guler said “no member of the treacherous terrorist organisation will be able to escape the grasp of Turkish soldiers.”

There was no immediate statement from the PKK. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.