Tue, 3 Jun 23:08:16 GMT17

 

Turk warplanes bomb PKK targets in N.Iraq-sources
25 Apr 2008 19:36:34 GMT
Source: Reuters
(Adds PKK comment, details, background)

ISTANBUL, April 25 (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) targets inside northern Iraq on Friday, Turkish army and local sources said.

A PKK spokesman said nobody was hurt.

At least eight planes carried out the operation against the Kurdish separatists from about 1630 GMT, the sources said, adding the bombing had been intense.

There was no announcement from Turkey's General Staff, which on Thursday said its warplanes had fired on a group of rebels in northern Iraq the day before as they tried to cross into Turkey.

Clashes also continued inside Turkey on Friday and the General Staff said two soldiers had been killed in the mountainous province of Sirnak, which borders Iraq. Military sources said one was a major and the other a soldier.

"We have fighters in the area but they are not concentrated in a single place. This is why we do not have any casualties," PKK spokesman Ahmed Danees told Reuters by telephone in northern Iraq.

The Turkish military staged an eight-day incursion into northern Iraq in February against the PKK, which uses the neighbouring country as a base from which to launch attacks on Turkey.

Ankara blames the separatist group for the deaths of 40,000 people since 1984 when the group took up arms to carve out an ethnic homeland in southeast Turkey.

The United States and the European Union, along with Turkey, consider the PKK a terrorist organisation. (Additional reporting by Shamal Aqrawi; Writing by Emma Ross-Thomas; Editing by Janet Lawrence)
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A doctor checks up on a patient in Baghdad's Ibn Rushud psychiatric hospital June 2, 2008. Peace of mind is hard to come by in Iraq, both for the few psychiatrists ...



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