Turkey says air strike killed 150 Kurdish rebels
SHIRWE HASSO, Iraq - As Turkey's military yesterday claimed it had killed 150 Kurdish separatists in air strikes in northern Iraq and a rebel spokesman disputed the account, people caught in the cross-fire were struggling to survive in tent cities and even caves.
SHIRWE HASSO, Iraq - As Turkey's military yesterday claimed it had killed 150 Kurdish separatists in air strikes in northern Iraq and a rebel spokesman disputed the account, people caught in the cross-fire were struggling to survive in tent cities and even caves.
Turkey's military said a series of air strikes ending Friday had hit 43 targets and killed at least 150 terrorists in its most aggressive offensive since it sent hundreds of ground troops over the border in February.
A spokesman for the separatists, who operate from bases in the mountains along the Turkish and Iranian borders, scoffed at the claim.
"I affirm that their airplanes have bombed some of our sites in the mountains in the last days, but they were empty ones, as our fighters are moving continuously in the mountains from one place to another," said the spokesman, Zagros Bokani.
Bokani represents an Iranian Kurdish rebel group, the Free Life Party, that is allied with the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK. Both groups are fighting for an autonomous Kurdish state. He said six rebels died in the latest attacks.
Since the autumn, Turkey has staged occasional incursions into the Qandil Mountains. Rarely is it possible to confirm either side's accounts of the fighting because of the remoteness of the region, but civilians living in the rugged mountains have been displaced.
On Friday, Owaz Jamal was singing in a low voice while sewing a dress for her 6-year-old daughter in her neatly kept tent.
She said they had fled the border village of Rezga, 35 miles away, because of the air strikes and artillery coming over the border.
As she spoke, columns of smoke rose from what villagers said were the remains of a Free Life Party building, which they said had been bombed.
























