Tunceli, Thursday,
TURKISH troops backed by air power today killed dozens of Kurdish guerrillas in a large cross-border raid against a rebel base in the mountains of northern Iraq.
``It is the biggest cross-border operation in the past four months or so,'' said a military official in the eastern Turkish town of Tunceli.
The regional governor's office in the nearby city of Diyarbakir said that troops began to pull back towards Turkey after killing 44 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels. Security officials said three troops were wounded.
Twelve battalions of commandos, police special forces, and around 250 members of a pro-government Kurdish militia poured five miles across the border in a five-pronged attack from the Turkish province of Hakkari.
A Turkish battalion consists of between 500 and 600 men.
The officials said US-made Cobra helicopters and air force planes pounded suspected guerrilla positions.
The operation was aimed at around 500 rebels at a base known as Mezi just inside Iraq, the official said.
Northern Iraq has been protected from Baghdad by a Western allied air force based in southern Turkey since shortly after the end of the Gulf War in 1991.
A six-week drive into Iraq by around 30,000 troops last year brought criticism from Turkey's Western allies but failed to oust the rebels, who are fighting for autonomy or independence for the Kurdish-populated region of south-east Turkey.-Reuter.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article