23 Aug 2011

Turkish strikes 'kill scores of PKK fighters'

Turkish air attacks on northern Iraq have killed between 90 and 100 Kurdish fighters, with 132 targets struck in six days of air raids, according to the Turkish military.

PKK

In a statement on Tuesday, the armed forces said it had information that more than 80 Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters had been wounded in the operations, which it said would continue.

Turkey last Wednesday resumed a bombing campaign against bases of the separatist group after a lull of more than a year in response to a PKK attack that killed nine soldiers in southeastern Turkey. On Sunday, seven Iraqis were reportedly killed in a Turkish air strike near Qalat Dizah, a town in Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region. Ankara did not confirm the strike.

The PKK, which the US and the European Union consider a terrorist organisation, is fighting for autonomy in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast.

See Al Jazeera English for more on this story or see Al Arabiya