Turkey Bombs Guerrilla Targets In Southern Kurdistan
ARBIL, (Southern Kurdistan), Jan 15, 2008 (AFP) Turkish warplanes bombed
Kurdish freedom fighters targets in Southern Kurdistan on Tuesday in the latest
in a series of cross-border air strikes, Turkey's military and KRG
security forces said.
"Intensive" strikes targeted The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) positions in the
regions of Zap-Sivi, Avashin-Bazyan and Hakurk, the Turkish army general staff
announced in a statement on its website.
"The aircraft returned safely to base after successfully completing their
mission," it said, adding that "maximum care" was taken to avoid civilian
casualties. It gave no toll.
General Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Kurdistan peshmerga security forces,
said the air strikes had been preceded by an artillery barrage.
"The Turkish artillery bombarded the areas of Khakurg and Nerweurikan near
Amadiya," Yawar told AFP in the northern Iraqi city of Arbil.
"Turkish military planes then took up the offensive and bombarded the same
areas," added Jawar, who said the attack had lasted nearly two hours.
Casualty figures were not immediately available from the areas hit in the
strikes, which Yawar said were uninhabited.
A Kurdistan Democratic Party official in the city of Sulaimani, speaking on
condition of anonymity, said the bombardments had struck across a 15-kilometre
strip along the border and five kilometers inside Iraqi Kurdistan.
