Skip to main content

Turkish troops enter Iraq after deadly Kurd rebel attacks

Arbil, Iraq: Turkish forces pushed into northern Iraq on Sunday, killing four people, including a 15-year-old girl, as they hit back against hideouts of Kurdish rebels who killed 12 soldiers in the deadliest spell of violence in two years.
The ground incursion into Iraq came after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to fight the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) "to the end" and PKK spokesman Ahmed Denis hit back with a threat to attack cities across Turkey if the army did not halt its policy of confrontation.
Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari, himself a Kurd, criticised the "unilateral" Turkish action and called on Erdogan's government to return to peaceful efforts to woo Turkey's large Kurdish minority away from violence.
By morning, the troops had advanced 10 kilometres (six miles) into Iraqi territory in the Qandil mountains where the rebels maintain a network of rear bases in their 26-year-old armed campaign for self-rule in southeastern Turkey, the Iraqi Kurdish security official said.
Turkish troops were operating in the mountains north of the town of Sidikan in Arbil province, one of three that make up the Kurdish autonomous region of northern Iraq, the official said.
Turkish fire killed a 15-year-old girl and wounded her mother and two-year-old brother in Khwakurq village, Sidikan district commissioner Ahmed Qader told AFP.
As Turkish forces advanced into Iraqi territory during the night they killed another three people, a security official said, without specifying whether the dead were civilians or PKK fighters.
Inside Turkey, the rebels kept up their attacks, killing one soldier and wounding another, bringing the military's losses in the past two days to 12, Turkey's Anatolia news agency reported.
The new casualties came as the Turkish premier joined other dignitaries in the eastern city of Van to honour the 11 soldiers who died on Saturday -- the bloodiest single day for the army since 2008.
"We are not going to slide into defeatism... we are going fight on to the end," Erdogan said at the televised ceremony.
The death toll prompted indignation among ordinary Turks, with many cultural and sporting events cancelled in mourning. Around 1,000 demonstrators gathered in Istanbul, chanting: "An eye for an eye."
On Monday morning, Turkish President Abdullah Gul is to chair a meeting of top political and military chiefs to discuss the upsurge in violence, Anatolia news agency reported.
Last year, Erdogan had announced a new policy of boosting Kurdish freedoms and investment in the country's impoverished southeast.
But it has faltered amid an opposition outcry that Ankara is bowing to the PKK, as well as persistent rebel attacks and a judicial onslaught on Kurdish activists.
The Iraqi foreign minister called for a return to the previous policy.
"This initiative is a wise one and needs to be embraced, enhanced and translated into action as the best solution for this age-old problem," Zebari told AFP in an interview.
"Of course we do not condone or support any cross-border terrorist attacks by the PKK," he stressed, adding that nonetheless "no country should resort to unilateral action."
Zebari said he feared Turkey was stepping up its incursions and air raids as the clock ticks down to an August 31 deadline for Washington to pull out 38,000 of its remaining 88,000 troops in Iraq.
"I personally believe the reason they are escalating these attacks now is to test the will of the Iraqi government, and also the American forces, as a prelude to the withdrawal of US combat forces in August," Zebari said.
"We are capable of filling the vacuum and we will not allow any other countries to step in to fill that vacuum."
Sunday's Turkish ground incursion was the second in five days and went far deeper than the previous incursion on Wednesday when troops advanced just a few kilometres (miles) before withdrawing.
The conflict with the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist organisation by much of the international community, has killed more than 45,000 people since it broke out in 1984, according to the Turkish army.

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Pakistani JF-17 A Thunder OR A Blunder

Pakistan has witnessed new defense acquisitions in this decade than any other, and in the center of it all is the new fighter which was designed by China with partial funding from Pakistan. It is formally known as JF-17 Thunder. When the fighter was in development, Pakistani online communities were jumping with excitement comparing it with its arch rival India’s modern combatants Su-30MKI, Mig-29S & Mirage-2000H. There were claims of it featuring western Radars and long range missiles, & Chinese ordering some due to its superior capabilities. But the reality is far from it. China having spent significant amount of money into a fighter which it is never going to use, most probably forced Pakistan to accept its avionics to offset some its development costs. Chinese who are known for their self reliance first and quality next, are further downgrading JF-17s capabilities with their poorly copy-pirated avionics. Along with their dubious weapons, any chance of JF

PLA’s new DF-5B Liquid-Fuel ICBM Can Hit Any Target On Earth

China is believed to be developing a new DF-5B liquid-fuel missile that will be able to strike any target on the planet, reports our Chinese-language sister paper Want Daily. The People’s Liberation Army’s current or in-development arsenal of long-range strategic intercontinental missiles (ICBMs) are led by the DF-31A, the DF-41 and the JL-2, all of which feature solid-fuel rockets. The DF-31A, with a range of 10,000 kilometers, can reach the west coast of the United States. The DF-41 has a longer operational range of 12,000-15,000 kilometers and can carry three or more warheads, though the missile is still in the testing phase. The JL-2, which has an estimated operation of up to 8,000 km, can only be fired from a submarine at sea. US and Japanese media report that China may have recently tested two ICMBs, the DF-41 and and the DF-5A. Military commentator Gao Feng believes that the firing of the DF-41 was part of regular testing, though the DF-5A test was likely part of basic re

Mossad & CIA Committed 9-11: Italian President Francesco Cossiga

Source: http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/archive.cgi?read=114778 Former Italian President Francesco Cossiga, who revealed the existence of Operation Gladio, has told Italy’s oldest and most widely read newspaper that the 9-11 terrorist attacks were run by the CIA and Mossad, and that this was common knowledge among global intelligence agencies. The evidence that Mossad planned 911 using Arab patsies is overwhelming; Mossad were caught filming the attack from Liberty Park and then later said on Israeli TV that they were sent there to document (they along with nearly 200 Mossad were rounded up and sent back to Israeli in the weeks following the attack, preventing the FBI from questioning them). Only 5 Israeli's died in the WTC attack; 3 on the airplanes and 2 in the buildings. It is a fact unexplainable by Zionists apologists that Idigo, and Israeli messaging service sent a warning in Hebrew worldwide that a terror attack would happen in a few hours on the da