Report: Turkish airstrike last week kills 19 Kurdish guerrillas in northern Iraq

Report: 19 Kurd rebels killed in attack last week

ANKARA, Turkey — A Turkish airstrike on Kurdish rebels hideouts in northern Iraq last week killed 19 Kurdish guerrillas and left several others wounded, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

The military would not confirm or deny the report. The figures could not immediately be independently verified.

The agency, citing military officials, said four rebels were killed in a separate clash Wednesday in eastern Tunceli province inside Turkey, bringing the overall rebel death toll to 23 since last week’s air assault on rebel camps in northern Iraq’s Hakurk, Zap and Qandil Mountain regions.

The agency said the figures were based on intercepted radio conversations between the guerrillas and that some of the wounded were taken to local hospitals in northern Iraq and that local Iraqi Kurdish security forces were notified.

The rebels have used northern Iraq to stage hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets for decades. Turkey often calls on Iraq to try stopping rebels from infiltrating along the mountainous border.

One soldier was killed and four others were wounded in another clash Thursday near the town of Uludere, close to the Iraqi border, the military said on its Web site.

The rebels, who fight for autonomy in the country’s southeast, intensified their attacks since December when Turkey’s Constitutional Court shut down a pro-Kurdish party on charges of ties to the guerrillas

Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the fighting since 1984.