ANKARA Turkish aircraft bombed Kurdish rebels fleeing northern Iraq into neighbouring countries yesterday as neighbouring Middle Eastern nations increased protests at Turkey's two-week-old military incursion.
"Warplanes rained bombs today and yesterday on terrorists trying to escape from northern Iraq to Iran in the east and Syria in the west," Turkey's state-run Anatolian news agency reported military sources as saying. The agency quoted military officials as saying troops had destroyed eight Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) camps as well as other shelters and stores used by the rebels in the mountains of northern Iraq.
Turkey puts the PKK death toll in the offensive at around 1,750. Rebel sources say around 25 Turkish soldiers are being killed daily. A ban on reporters entering the region made confirmation impossible, but western diplomats say they believe figures from both sides are exaggerated.
Western allies of Turkey, a member of NATO, and regional countries have expressed growing concern over the incursion into a Kurdish enclave protected by the west since the Gulf War ended in 1991.