Turkish military pounds PKK positions in N Iraq

Mourners walk behind the Turkish flag-wrapped coffin of Private Ibrahim Gedik during a funeral ceremony in Trabzon, Turkey, on Sunday. Gedik was killed during clashes with Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq. PHOTO: AP

Turkish fired more than 40 salvos of artillery shells across the Iraqi border yesterday, a day after the military confirmed that a Turkish helicopter had crashed in Iraq and eight soldiers were killed during a cross-border ground operation against Kurdish rebels.

The sound of the artillery fire from a distance could be heard in this border town. Several military bases that support the ongoing incursion into Iraq are located on the outskirts of this town and artillery units have been positioned on hilltops overlooking Iraq.

The rebels said on Sunday they had shot down a Turkish military helicopter near the Turkish-Iraqi border.

Turkey's said technicians were inspecting the wreck to determine why the helicopter crashed near the border. It was not clear if any of the reported troop casualties were on board. Their deaths bring the Turkish toll since the start of the incursion on Thursday to 15, the military said on its Web site.

Thirty-three were killed in Sunday's fighting, bringing the rebel death toll since Thursday to 112, the armed forces said.

The incursion is the first confirmed Turkish military ground operation in Iraq since the US-led invasion that toppled former president Saddam Hussein in 2003.

The rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), are fighting for autonomy in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey and have carried out attacks on Turkish targets from bases in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.

Turkey assured that the operation would be limited to attacks on rebels. The US and the EU consider the PKK a terrorist group.

"It is only an operation geared to cleansing the terrorist camps," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Sunday in an address to the youth branch of his ruling party. "Our Iraqi brothers, friends and civilians should know that they will never be targeted by the armed forces."