Turkish planes bombed an area of Iraq near the border with Turkey today to attack Kurdish separatists and the army said it had killed at least 150 guerrillas in its air offensive earlier this month.
A Turkish military source said warplanes launched the limited strike today after spotting Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas during a reconnaissance flight. He said the strike was smaller than others in recent weeks.
Colonel Hussein Tamar, director of Iraq's border guard command in the northern Kurdish province of Dahuk, said villages near the border were hit but nobody was hurt.
The area was depopulated because residents had fled earlier attacks, he said.
Turkey has repeatedly bombed areas of northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK rebels over the past few weeks. Ground troops have also made occasional cross-border raids, although a large-scale assault is seen as unlikely, especially in winter.
The Turkish general staff said today that a strike it had launched on December 16th had killed between 150 and 175 PKK fighters.
Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan defended the strikes, which he said targeted only PKK separatist guerrillas.
"No matter who says what, we are using and continue to use air and land operations within the framework of authority granted by international law," he said in a speech to his political party, without referring directly today's strike.
"Nobody can object to that if Turkey is responding to attacks against its unity, citizens and soldiers."
The Turkish cross-border strikes have forced Washington to walk a careful line between the interests of two close allies.
US military spokesman Rear Admiral Greg Smith said Turkish authorities had informed US forces in advance of plans to fly a reconnaissance mission over Iraq, but US forces were not immediately aware of whether the aircraft had opened fire.
Turkey says it has the right to pursue PKK guerrillas after the rebels carried out a string of deadly attacks in Turkey.