Turkish jets bomb Iraqi Kurds Agence France-Presse

Published: Monday October 6, 2008





Print This Email This ANKARA (AFP) - The Turkish army on Monday stepped up operations against Kurdish rebels, bombing their hideouts both in neighbouring Iraq and inside Turkey after 17 soldiers were killed in a rebel attack last week.



The government meanwhile pondered new measures to curb the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), among them legal changes requested by the security forces to strengthen their hand in the struggle.



Fighter jets targeted PKK militants holed up in the Avasin Basyan area inside northern Iraq, following an initial operation Sunday night in which Turkish forces fired artillery at two other rebel groups detected in the same region along the border, the military said.



The raid -- the third inside northern Iraq since PKK militants crossing from their camps in the area attacked a Turkish border outpost -- was "successful," it said, without mentioning rebel casualties.



Later in the day, fighter jets also struck PKK hideouts in the Buzul mountains in Turkey's southeast, close to the scene of Friday's attack, the military said.



It also announced that the bodies of two soldiers who were missing since Friday were found, bringing the death toll to 17.



Clashes following the brazen daytime assault on the outpost left at least 23 PKK rebels dead, making the confrontation the bloodiest between the army and the militants this year, according to the army.



The PKK said earlier Monday it had the bodies of two soldiers.



It also claimed to have killed 62 troops and wounded more than 30, while putting its own losses at nine.



In Ankara, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan held a meeting with his ministers of the interior, defence, justice and foreign affairs to discuss fresh measures after the attack on the outpost sparked nationwide outrage and triggered calls for tougher action against the PKK.



Parliament is expected to vote soon on extending by one year the government's mandate for cross-border military strikes in northern Iraq, where Ankara estimates about 2,000 PKK militants are based.



Turkey has long accused the Iraqi Kurds of tolerating the PKK on their territory, where, it says, the militants easily obtain weapons and explosives for attacks on Turkish targets across the border.



Turkish anger with the Iraqi Kurds flared again following Friday's bloodshed after the army said the rebels who attacked the outpost were backed by fire from heavy weapons positioned in northern Iraq.



"We have no support at all from the northern Iraqi administration (against the rebels). Let aside any support, they are providing (the rebels with) infrastructural capabilities such as hospitals and roads," the army's number two, General Hasan Igsiz, said Sunday.



The Iraqi authorities have repeatedly pledged to curb the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and much of the international community, but say the group takes refuge in mountainous regions to which access is difficult.



Justice Minister Mehmet Ali Sahin said Monday that discussions were under way on five legal amendments requested by the army and the police to beef up the struggle against the PKK.



The security forces have often complained that certain reforms limiting their powers, passed recently as part of Turkey's efforts to align with European Union norms, have hampered efforts against criminal groups.



The government, Sahin said, aims to resolve the issue "without giving concessions neither on security nor freedoms."



The PKK took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.



