Reports: Turkish warplanes bomb Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq
By APThursday, May 20, 2010
Reports: Turkey bombs Kurdish rebels in Iraq
ISTANBUL — Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Thursday, the state-run Anatolia news agency said.
The air strike was carried out against a group of Kurdish rebels seen moving toward the Turkish border, the report said. It did not mention any casualties.
Private NTV television said 20 warplanes took part in the strike on targets in the Zap and Hakurk regions along the border.
The press office of Turkey’s military declined to confirm or deny the attack.
Ahmed Danis, a spokesman for the PKK, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, said Turkish jets bombed at least three villages in the Qandil mountains, near the area where Iraq, Iran and Turkey intersect. But he said there were no casualties among the fighters because the left their bases a while ago and now live in caves in the area.
The bombing went on for about two hours, Danis said, adding that planes could be heard overhead for a few hours later.
Jabar Yawer, a spokesman for the Kurdish military, called the peshmerga, said they had heard reports of bombing near the Qandil mountains but had no details.
Omer Celik, a lawmaker from the governing Justice and Development Party, urged Iraq’s Kurdish administration to stop Kurdish rebels in Iraq launching attacks on Turkey, NTV reported.
Turkish warplanes often have targeted rebel hideouts in northern Iraq that guerrillas have used to stage hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets for decades.
Such attacks have increased since December when Turkey’s Constitutional Court shut down a pro-Kurdish party on charges of ties to the guerrillas.
The rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party have killed at least six soldiers and wounded seven in two separate cross-border attacks this month.
The rebels took up arms for self-rule in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast in 1984. The fighting has killed tens of thousands of people.
Associated Press Writer Yahya Barzanji, in Sulamaniyah, Iraq, contributed to this report.
