A US-backed, Kurdish-led group announced Tuesday that it had recovered the bodies of nine of its fighters who were killed when two helicopters carrying them crashed in Iraqi Kurdistan on March 15. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) stated that the remains of six men and three women members of an elite counterterrorism team were transported to Hasakah in northeast Syria and that a ceremony marking their loss will be held there Wednesday.

The statement shed no further light on who the helicopters belonged to. It reiterated an earlier announcement that the victims were flying to Sulaimaniyah, the second largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan, “as part of joint efforts to combat [Islamic State] cells” when the choppers fell. In a previous statement, the SDF cited poor weather conditions as the reason for the crash that occurred in Dahuk province close to the Turkish border.

Kurdistan Regional Government Prime Minister Masrour Barzani said the helicopters belonged to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which shares power with Barzani’s Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP). Tensions between the longtime rivals have resurfaced over the latter’s claim that the PUK ordered the murder of a senior intelligence officer who had defected from the PUK to the KDP after moving to Erbil. Speaking to diplomats and other international officials at a Kurdish New Year reception in Erbil on Saturday, Barzani said, "We’ve started an investigation to find out what these helicopters are and why they were there. These were helicopters that initially were purchased by a group within the PUK, but why they ended up [being operated by] the SDF we don’t know.” KDP officials had initially claimed that the victims belonged to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). The PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish army since 1984, is proscribed as terrorists by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

In a joint news conference in Ankara, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani made no reference to the incident. However, Erdogan said Turkey expects Iraq to designate the PKK as a terrorist organization and to clear Iraqi lands of their presence.