ANKARA, 24 December 2007 — Turkish aircraft yesterday carried out fresh attacks on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq, Turkey’s Anatolia news agency reported, citing a spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga security force.
Turkish fighter jets first carried out reconnaissance in the Qandil mountains near the border with Turkey and Iran, where Ankara says thousands of PKK rebels are based, before bombing certain positions, Anatolia cited spokesman Jabbar Yawar as saying.
Yawar told Turkish television channel NTV that three jets took part in the raid in the uninhabited Rawanduz area.
There was no immediate confirmation from the Turkish military.
On Saturday the Turkish military said its aircraft had attacked PKK positions in northern Iraq for the third time in less than a week, bombing and shelling them and warning more raids would follow.
The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Turkey and many other countries, has waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey since 1984. The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives.
Turkey has been stepping up pressure since its Parliament approved cross-border raids on PKK bases in October, with Ankara saying the Iraqi government and its US backers were not doing enough to halt attacks.
On Dec. 16 the Turkish military said its aircraft attacked PKK positions in the Qandil mountains, which Ankara says the rebels use as a springboard for attacks on Turkey.
Two days later the Turkish Army said troops penetrated into northern Iraq from the southeast Turkish province of Hakkari. Iraqi officials said about 500 Turkish troops took part in the ground operation.
Four Die in Iraq
A roadside bomb targeting an Iraqi Army patrol in Baghdad killed two civilians yesterday, as attacks claimed the lives of two others elsewhere despite a marked decrease in violence across the country in recent months.
The roadside bomb in southeastern Baghdad’s predominantly Shiite neighborhood of Zaafaraniyah also wounded four people, a Baghdad police officer said.
Earlier, a local government official in the town of Kut, south of the capital, escaped an apparent assassination attempt when a bomb exploded outside his house. Abdul-Ridha Al-Badri, director of the Human Rights Ministry’s provincial branch in Kut, his wife and four sons were injured by shattered glass and falling pieces of the house’s facade, a police officer said.
To the north, gunmen shot and killed an Iraqi Army officer west of the city of Mosul, 360 kilometers northwest of Baghdad, police said. Lt. Col. Nayif Muhammed Al-Shammari was shot as he drove his car. He was not in uniform at the time, a police officer said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Also in Mosul yesterday, a parked car bomb targeting a passing police patrol killed a civilian and wounded five policemen, police said.
