Turkish troops 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 of 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.
PHOTO: AFP
Clashes also 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 troops 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 clashed 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 troops 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."
MINERAL DEPOSITS: The Pacific nation is looking for new foreign partners after its agreement with Canada’s Metals Co was terminated ‘mutually’ at the end of last year Pacific nation Kiribati says it is exploring a deep-sea mining partnership with China, dangling access to a vast patch of Pacific Ocean harboring coveted metals and minerals. Beijing has been ramping up efforts to court Pacific nations sitting on lucrative seafloor deposits of cobalt, nickel and copper — recently inking a cooperation deal with Cook Islands. Kiribati opened discussions with Chinese Ambassador Zhou Limin (周立民) after a longstanding agreement with leading deep-sea mining outfit The Metals Co fell through. “The talk provides an exciting opportunity to explore potential collaboration for the sustainable exploration of the deep-ocean resources in Kiribati,” the government said
The head of Shin Bet, Israel’s domestic intelligence agency, was sacked yesterday, days after Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said he no longer trusts him, and fallout from a report on the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attack. “The Government unanimously approved Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s proposal to end ISA Director Ronen Bar’s term of office,” a statement said. He is to leave his post when his successor is appointed by April 10 at the latest, the statement said. Netanyahu on Sunday cited an “ongoing lack of trust” as the reason for moving to dismiss Bar, who joined the agency in 1993. Bar, meant to
Indonesia’s parliament yesterday amended a law to allow members of the military to hold more government roles, despite criticisms that it would expand the armed forces’ role in civilian affairs. The revision to the armed forces law, pushed mainly by Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto’s coalition, was aimed at expanding the military’s role beyond defense in a country long influenced by its armed forces. The amendment has sparked fears of a return to the era of former Indonesian president Suharto, who ex-general Prabowo once served and who used military figures to crack down on dissent. “Now it’s the time for us to ask the
The central Dutch city of Utrecht has installed a “fish doorbell” on a river lock that lets viewers of an online livestream alert authorities to fish being held up as they make their springtime migration to shallow spawning grounds. The idea is simple: An underwater camera at Utrecht’s Weerdsluis lock sends live footage to a Web site. When somebody watching the site sees a fish, they can click a button that sends a screenshot to organizers. When they see enough fish, they alert a water worker who opens the lock to let the fish swim through. Now in its fifth year, the
RSS