F-16s bomb Turk Kurd rebels in Iraq - Kurd sources
( 2002-03-24 11:18) (7)
Warplanes have hammered Turkish Kurdish guerrilla encampments in northern Iraq, killing about 25 rebels, but it was not immediately clear where the aircraft were from, Iraqi Kurdish sources said on Saturday.
The Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK), which administers northern Iraq, said it saw the aircraft bombing areas on Kandil Mountain in the region late on Thursday.
"Four F-16s flying from the direction of Turkey bombed four separate points as PKK guerrillas celebrated Newroz," PUK sources in northern Iraq told Reuters in Tunceli, eastern Turkey, by telephone. "A high number of PKK were killed."
The PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) has thousands of rebels based in the area. On Thursday, they celebrated the traditional new year holiday Newroz.
They had lit fires for the festival, making them easily identifiable, the PUK official said.
Mezopotamya TV, a Europe-based satellite broadcaster, reported 25 rebels had been killed in the bombing, quoting PKK sources.
Turkish military sources based near Tunceli declined comment on the PUK and PKK reports, but said there had been military action in the region.
Turkish troops regularly cross the border in pursuit of PKK rebels encamped in northern Iraq, which Iraqi Kurds wrested from Baghdad's control in the wake of the 1991 Gulf War.
US and British warplanes based in Turkey have since patrolled a no-fly zone over northern Iraq to protect the enclave administered by the rival PUK and Kurdistan Democratic Party.
The Turkish military says some 5,000 PKK fighters have been based in the region since Turkish special forces captured rebel commander Abdullah Ocalan in 1999. Ocalan has ordered his followers to withdraw from Turkey and abandon their armed struggle for a Kurdish homeland in southeastern Turkey.
More than 30,000 people have died since fighting between the PKK and Turkish troops erupted in southeastern Turkey in 1984.
|
