Turkish warplanes bombed villages deep in northern Iraq early today, killing one woman and wounding two other people in one of the heaviest raids against Kurdish rebels in months.
In Ankara, the Turkish military's General Staff said its warplanes had attacked the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which uses northern Iraq as a base from which to attack security forces inside Turkey.
Private broadcaster CNN Turk quoted unnamed Turkish military sources denying that Iraqi villages had been targeted.
If the death of the woman is confirmed it would be the first since Turkey stepped up artillery bombardments and airstrikes on suspected PKK bases in the Qandil mountains in October.
Turkey's deputy prime minister, Cemil Cicek, said the military would continue such operations "as and when required".
The mayors of Jarawa and Sankasar, two towns north of the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, said the airstrikes were launched at 2am (2300 GMT) and continued for several hours.
A number of homes and a school were destroyed in 10 villages around 60 miles south of the Turkish border.
The two mayors said one woman was killed and at least two people wounded.
Meanwhile, an Italian Roman Catholic priest was stabbed at his church in the city of Izmir today.
The priest, identified as Adriano Franchini, was taken to hospital where his injuriwes were not thought to be life threatening.
The incident follows a spate of attacks in mainly Muslim but secular Turkey in recent years on Christian targets.
Italian Catholic priest Andrea Santoro was shot dead in his church in the Turkish Black Sea city of Trabzon in February 2006 and in April this year three Christians - a German national and two Turks - were killed in a Bible publishing house in the eastern town of Malatya.