Turkish helicopter gunships attacked abandoned villages inside Iraqi Kurdistan
on Tuesday, Kurdish officials said, the first such airstrike since border
tensions have escalated in recent months.
It also was the first major Turkish action against Kurdish guerrilla since
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met President Bush in Washington
earlier this month. The United States and Iraq have pressured Turkey to avoid a
large-scale attack on guerrilla bases in Iraqi Kurdistan, fearing such an
operation would destabilize what has been the calmest region in the country.
Meanwhile, Kurdish guerrillas killed four Turkish soldiers in a clash Tuesday in
southeastern Turkey, Turkish Defense Minister Vecdi Gonul said.
More than 50 Turkish troops have been killed in a series of hit-and-run attacks
by Kurdish rebels since late September. Turkey says it has killed dozens of
rebels.
Col. Hussein Tamir, an Iraqi Army officer who supervises border guards, said the
airstrikes occurred before dawn on abandoned villages near Zakhu, an Iraqi
Kurdish town near the border with Turkey. There were no casualties, he said.
A spokesman for the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, corroborated Tamir's
account of the airstrikes, and said sporadic clashes had been taking place
inside Turkey since late Monday. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he
was not authorized to speak to media.
Witnesses said the Turkish bombing lasted half an hour in the villages of
Nazdori, Kashani and Baashish.
"I was on the other side of the mountain when I heard huge explosions and could
smell TNT powder all over the area," said 53-year-old Irbahim Mazori. A
shepherd, Mazori said he sometimes spends a night or two in the villages while
tending his sheep.
U.S. authorities have agreed to share intelligence about positions of Kurdish
rebels with Turkey, possibly enabling the Turkish military to carry out limited
assaults.
"The United States has declared the PKK as the common enemy. The struggle
against this enemy will be maintained until it is eliminated," Erdogan told
lawmakers in Parliament Tuesday.
