Turkey sent hundreds of elite troops into northern Iraq on Wednesday to chase Kurdish guerrillas in an operation that could increase tensions within the region.
The soldiers killed four rebels escaping after a failed attack on a Turkish unit near the border, the Turkish military said. It did not say when the troops, who were supported by Turkish warplanes, would withdraw, but private NTV television, without citing any sources, said the soldiers were on their way back to Turkey.
The military has repeatedly staged air and ground assaults against Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq. The last major incursion was in February 2008, when thousands of ground forces staged a week-long offensive into Iraq that worried Iraqi Kurds.
Iraqi Kurds have been cooperating with Turkey in its fight against the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, sharing intelligence on the guerrillas’ movements and positions. However, the latest incursion could trigger protests from Baghdad and the semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region.
The incursion comes as the rebels have stepped up attacks in Turkey, killing more than 30 soldiers in recent months and causing public outrage.
The conflict has killed some 40,000 people since it began in 1984. Many PKK guerrillas shelter in the mountains of neighboring Iraq, crossing the border for hit-and-run assaults. The group is considered a terrorist organization by both the EU and the US.
The public fury and escalating military response threaten to derail an already faltering government effort to defuse the insurgency by granting unprecedented cultural and political freedoms to Turkey’s Kurds, the country’s largest minority group.
The military said on its Web site that three commando companies and one special forces battalion penetrated 3km into Iraq in the incursion.
Turkish warplanes also pounded Kurdish rebel positions, mortar and anti-aircraft units deeper inside Iraqi territory on Wednesday, the military said.
The offensive was ordered after the rebels attempted an unsuccessful attack on troops near the Turkish border town of Uludere late on Tuesday, the military said.
“The air operation was monitored from the command headquarters and it was noted that the targets were successfully hit,” the military said.
The Turkish military estimates around 4,000 rebels are based just across the border in Iraq and that about 2,500 operate inside Turkey. Last month, Turkey killed at least 19 Kurdish rebels in an air strike on rebel hideouts in northern Iraq.
The PKK has freely operated in northern Iraq, benefiting from a power vacuum for decades.
The last ground offensive in 2008 yielded mixed results, with many guerrillas making a comeback to bases along the border after the Turkish units withdrew. The incursion also worried the region’s Iraqi Kurds, who feared that a prolonged Turkish military presence could destabilize the relatively safer Iraqi territory.
Turkey occasionally coordinates attacks with Iran on Kurdish rebel bases on Mount Qandil, which sits on the Iranian-Iraqi border and from where a sub-rebel group stages hit-and-run attacks on Iranian targets in a similar war for Kurdish rights in Iran.
Syria long harbored the rebels, but forced guerrilla leader Abdullah Ocalan to leave the country after Turkey threatened war in late 1998, eventually leading to the capture of the rebel chief on Feb. 15. 1999.
Earlier this month, Turkey offered greater economic cooperation with Iraqi Kurds, pressuring the region’s president, Massoud Barzani, to jointly combat Turkish Kurdish rebel hideouts in northern Iraq that the rebels have used as a springboard for attacks.
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