[NYTr] Turkish army claims massive PKK toll from Iraq raid

[All the News That Doesn't Fit]

AFP - Dec 25, 2007
http://www.afp.com/english/news/stories/071225183207.330r4no2.html


Turkish army claims massive toll from Iraq raid

ANKARA (AFP) - The Turkish military Tuesday claimed to have inflicted
massive losses on Kurdish rebels in bombing raids in northern Iraq as
Iraqi Kurdish officials reported a fresh Turkish air strike.

"It is understood that between 150 and 175 terrorists... were rendered
ineffective" in a December 16 strike, the general staff said on its
website.

"The figure does not include the terrorists who were rendered
ineffective as a result of hideouts or caves collapsing in the air
raid."

It said many rebels from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) were
wounded in the operation.

Turkish warplanes launched another raid in northern Iraq on Tuesday,
according to an official from the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga security
force.

He said Turkish planes bombed three villages as they targeted rebel
bases in the Iraqi Kurdish province of Dohuk.

The strike lasted around 10 minutes shortly after midday, and hit the
villages of Rikan, Shezee and Samjuhu in the border region of
Al-Amadiyah.

"The villages were deserted," the official said on condition of
anonymity.

The army said in a second statement that five PKK rebels were killed
early Tuesday in an operation, backed by helicopters, in a mountainous
region in the southeastern Turkish province of Sirnak, close to the
Iraqi border.

But it made no mention of any cross-border action and said troops had
returned to their bases.

If confirmed, Tuesday's bombing would be the fourth Turkish air strike
in northern Iraq since October, when parliament authorised cross-border
military action against the PKK armed separatist group.

Since 1984, the PKK's armed rebellion against Turkey for Kurdish
self-rule has claimed more than 37,000 lives. The group is classed as a
terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European
Union.

NATO-member Turkey has moved around 100,000 soldiers up to the border
with Iraq in preparation for a threatened ground invasion, accusing the
United States and the Iraqi government of failing to control the rebels.

Ankara says an estimated 3,500 PKK fighters use the mountainous
Kurdish-run territory in northern Iraq as a springboard for attacks
inside Turkey.

The PKK has denied it has suffered any serious losses in the Turkish
raids, saying only five of its militants and two civilians were killed
in the December 16 strikes, the first after Turkish parliament gave the
go-ahead.

Iraqi Kurdish leaders said that raid caused many civilian casualties,
claims dismissed as "baseless" by the Turkish military which insists it
targeted "facilities used only by terrorists."

The general staff said 16 command, training and logistical bases as
well as 182 hideouts, 10 anti-aircraft defence positions and 14
ammunition depots were destroyed.

It also distributed black-and-white images of rebel targets taken
before and after the December 16 raid, which it said showed destroyed
buildings in PKK camps.

That attack was followed by a small-scale ground operation in which
Turkish troops penetrated "several kilometers" into northern Iraq from
the southeast province of Hakkari.

A second air raid on December 22 targeted "hideouts and anti-aircraft
positions belonging to the PKK," the army said.

Since then, officials in northern Iraq have reported two other Turkish
air raids, including the one on Tuesday. The Turkish army has not
confirmed the last two raids reported by Iraqi Kurds.

The raids have been coordinated with the US military in Iraq, and US
President George W. Bush spoke to Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip
Erdogan on Monday.

Ankara has accused Iraqi Kurds of tolerating and supporting the PKK.

But Iraq officials have called the air raids an attack on Iraqi
sovereignty.

"We are not denying that Turkey has a right to defend itself from
extremists but some of its actions are not serving any democratic
purpose in Turkey or in Iraq," Iraqi President Jalal Talabani told
reporters Monday.