Local authorities and news outlets in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region have said that several people were killed in a Turkish drone strike on Friday, including two journalists. In an initial statement on Friday, the regional authorities said that a car belonging to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was struck near the city of Sulaymaniyah, killing a senior PKK official, his guard and his driver. However, a later statement by the Kurdistan regional government's Deputy Prime Minister Qubad Talabani said that the attack targeted a group of journalists, two of whom were killed. "They were two women journalists, not members of an armed force to be a threat to the security and stability of any country or region," Talabani said in a statement. Reporters Without Borders (RSF), a press advocacy organisation, also released a statement denouncing the deaths of the two journalists, identified as 27-year-old Hero Baha'uddin and 40-year-old Golestan Tara from Sterk TV.

Fox News Flash top headlines are here. Check out what's clicking on Foxnews.com. Iran announced late Monday that it had launched strikes against a "spy headquarters and the gathering of anti-Iranian terrorist groups" shortly after missiles hit an area near the U.S. consulate in Irbil, the seat of Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Soon after, a statement from Iran's Revolutionary Guards on state media said it had struck "terrorist operations" including Islamic State targets in Syria "and destroyed them by firing a number of ballistic missiles." Another statement claimed that it had hit a headquarters of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence agency, in the Kurdish region of Iraq.

At least six people have been killed in a suspected drone attack on an airport near the city of Sulaymaniyah in the semi-autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, official sources have told Al Jazeera. Al Jazeera's Mahmoud Abdelwahed, reporting from the Iraqi capital Baghdad, said that the Arbat airport, located 50km (30 miles) to the east of Sulaimaniya, has been used by the "anti-terrorism" combat apparatus that is part of Sulaymaniyah security forces. "Whether all the victims are from the anti-terrorism apparatus remains to be known," he said. The airport was used for agricultural purposes in the past. Two members of the Kurdish security forces were wounded in the attack and were rushed to a military hospital in Sulaimaniya under tight security, a police source told Reuters.

Iraq cancelled a ministerial visit and summoned Turkey's ambassador on Wednesday as it blamed Ankara for a drone attack that killed two high-ranking Iraqi military officers. Iraqi officials called the attack a "blatant Turkish drone attack" in the autonomous Kurdish region in northern Iraq, where Turkey's military has for weeks raided positions of fighters it considers "terrorists". Two border guard battalion commanders and the driver of their vehicle were killed on Tuesday, the army said in a statement, marking the first Iraqi troop deaths since Turkey launched the cross-border operation in mid-June against Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels. Iraq's foreign ministry - which already summoned the Turkish envoy twice over the military action on its soil - said the ambassador would this time be given "a letter of protest with strong words" rejecting the offensive. The ministry also confirmed the Turkish defence minister would no longer be welcomed for a planned visit on Thursday.