Turkish forces close in on PKK

Thousands of people march carrying banners reading ''We fight for life, We die for peace'' to protest operations against the Kurdistan Workers' Party during a demonstration in Diyarbakir, Turkey, on Monday. PHOTO: AFP

Turkish were engaged in fierce clashes with Kurdish militants in northern Iraq as they closed in on one of the main separatist camps, security sources said yesterday.

Members the Kurdish security force in the autonomous north of Iraq said that sustained fighting continued unabated since late Sunday as troops, backed by artillery and air cover, fought to seize a main rebel camp in the Zap area.

The camp, situated in a deep valley just a 6km walk from the Turkish border, is one of the main passages used by Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels to infiltrate Turkish territory for attacks.

Clashes continued since late on Monday in the mountainous Hakurk area to the east, close to Iraq's border with Iran, where the Turkish army air-dropped troops and helicopter gunships pounded rebel positions, the sources said.

The fighting came a day after Turkish jets bombed Hakurk, a prominent PKK stronghold some 20km from the Turkish frontier.

Turkish crossed into northern Iraq on Thursday evening in the largest cross-border offensive in years against PKK hideouts in the region, bombing rebel positions and fighting the militants on the ground.

The Turkish army said on Monday it had killed 153 PKK rebels and lost 17 soldiers since the beginning of the incursion.

A statement posted on the Turkish military's Web site on Monday said it had hit some 30 PKK targets in a 24-hour period.

In past clashes, Turkish troops have sometimes left the bodies of guerrillas in the remote areas where they were killed, fearing they could be booby trapped. Turkish fatalities are easier to document because slain soldiers receive elaborate burials that are usually attended by officials and military officers.

The rebels said Turkey could not win the conflict.

"They have stepped into a quagmire, they are trying to set themselves free," Firat, a pro-Kurdish news agency, quoted PKK commander Bahoz Erdal as saying.

Havaw Ruaj, a PKK spokesman, said four PKK fighters have been killed and eight wounded in cross-border fighting. Firat carried a rebel claim that 81 Turkish soldiers had died.

Rebels with troops at the al-Zab border area but heavy snow on Monday hampered movement by the Turks and bad weather caused fewer flights by Turkish jets and helicopters, Ruaj said.

He said Turkish troops were as far as 15km inside Iraqi territory at some points. Turkey's NTV television said soldiers were 25km inside Iraq.

"We are using guerrilla fighting techniques and not fighting as one fixed front," Ruaj said.

Turkish fired dozens of salvos of artillery shells at suspected rebel hideouts on Monday and clashed with the rebels in four parts of northern Iraq, the military said. It did not specify the locations.

It said troops were destroying rebel shelters, logistics centers and ammunition. Retreating rebels were setting booby traps under the corpses of dead comrades or planting mines on escape routes, it said.

In Washington, Lieutenant-General Carter Ham, director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told reporters that the US has no indications that the Turks were straying from their original assurance to Washington that their incursion would be "limited in depth and in duration."