Turkish fighter jets pounded Kurdish rebel positions for the fifth day running on Monday in the mountainous Hakurk region of northern Iraq, security sources said.
Members of the Kurdish security force in the autonomous north of Iraq said the raids, which began at about 10pm local time on Sunday, continued overnight in and around Hakurk, a prominent Kurdish PKK rebel stronghold 20km from the Turkish frontier.
Billows of smoke could be seen miles away, they said.
The Firat news agency, considered a PKK mouthpiece, said on its internet site that warplanes began taking off from the military air base in Diyarbakir, the main city in Turkey’s south-east, late on Sunday.
The raids came after fighting intensified between Turkish troops and PKK rebels around Hakurk.
The Turkish army released new footage of the incursion, showing soldiers in white camouflage filing into a Sikorsky helicopter that took off from an unnamed base along with Cobra attack helicopters.
Soldiers carrying machine guns and assault rifles could be seen advancing in deep snow on rugged hills.
The footage also showed a convoy of military vehicles transporting soldiers and black-and-white images of unspecified targets destroyed by air strikes.
The Anatolia news agency reported that security was increased on the Turkish side of the border with Iraq in a bid to prevent any rebel infiltration.
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 Sunday that it had killed 112 PKK rebels and lost 15 soldiers since the beginning of the incursion, including a major and a captain who were the pilots of a Turkish chopper downed near Amadiyah on Saturday.
Ankara says an estimated 4 000 PKK rebels are holed up in northern Iraq and use the region as a springboard for attacks on Turkish territory as part of their campaign for self-rule in Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey.
The conflict has claimed more than 37 000 lives since the PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms in 1984. — AFP
