Turkish jets strike at PKK in Iraq

ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkish warplanes have bombed 20 suspected Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq in a third day of cross-border strikes, the military said Saturday.

Friday's aerial offensive was backed with 85 rounds of artillery fire, according to a statement posted on the military headquarters' website.

Turkey launched its latest cross-border offensive on Wednesday, hours after eight soldiers and a village guard were killed in an ambush near the Iraqi border. It came on the heels of escalated attacks by the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, that have killed some 40 soldiers since July.

The military released footage that it claimed showed attacks on positions — apparently pinpointed with the help of intelligence gathered by unmanned drones — that included a bridge, suspected rebel shelters and caves used as ammunition depots on Mount Qandil on the Iraqi-Iranian border and in the Hakurk area in northeastern Iraq.

The rebels have long used northern Iraq as a springboard for hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets in their campaign for autonomy in Turkey's Kurdish-dominated southeast.

Turkey has carried out a number of cross-border air raids and ground incursions over the years but has failed to stop rebel infiltration through the mountainous border.

The military statement said all planes returned to their base safely and that work was under way to assess the damage and losses caused.

A PKK spokesman, Ahmed Danis said Saturday that the Turkish strikes had hit bases already destroyed in previous strikes.

"Our fighters left these bases a while ago and now they are in constant mobility. Therefore there were no casualties. But there was damage to homes and land in villages which forced people to leave these areas," he said.

"We do not see any point in launching these strikes on the border areas because the confrontation is taking place deep inside the Turkish areas," he said.

Turkey's Interior Ministry meanwhile, said troops had killed at least four rebels, including two women fighters, in clashes inside Turkey since Thursday.

The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Tens of thousands of people have been killed in the conflict since 1984.

__

Yahya Barzanji in Sulaimaniyah, Iraq contributed.