Turkish warplanes bombed villages deep in northern Iraq early on Sunday, killing one woman and wounding two other people in one of the heaviest raids against Kurdish rebels in months, local officials said.
In Ankara, the Turkish military's General Staff said in a statement that its warplanes had attacked targets of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which uses northern Iraq as a base for attacking security forces inside Turkey.
Private broadcaster CNN Turk quoted unnamed Turkish military sources denying that Iraqi villages had been targeted.
If the death of the woman is confirmed it would be the first since Turkey stepped up artillery bombardments and airstrikes on suspected PKK bases in the Qandil mountains in October.
Turkey's deputy prime minister, Cemil Cicek said that the military would continue such operations “as and when required”.
Rid evil of terrorism
“The government, along with all other relevant state bodies, starting with our armed forces, is determined to rid our country of this evil (of terrorism),” the state Anatolian news agency quoted him as saying.
The mayors of Jarawa and Sankasar, two towns north of the Iraqi Kurdish city of Sulaimaniya, said the airstrikes were launched at 2 a.m. (2300 GMT) and continued for several hours. A number of homes and a school were destroyed in 10 villages around 100 km (60 miles) south of the Turkish border, they said.
The two mayors said one woman was killed and at least two people wounded, although a third mayor said he was only aware of the injuries. A senior officer in Iraq's border guards confirmed the airstrike but said he had no details on casualties.
Turkey's armed forces have conducted several cross-border military operations in recent weeks.
