Turkey Says 150 Killed in Strikes on Rebel Kurds

By SEBNEM ARSU
Published: December 26, 2007
ISTANBUL — Two Turkish airstrikes on Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq hit more than 200 targets and killed more than 150 rebels, the Turkish Army said Tuesday.

The air raids, on Dec. 16 and 22, were the first large scale assaults on Iraqi territory since the Turkish parliament approved a cross border operation in mid-October to curb rebel hideouts in Iraqi’s northern mountains.

Turkish officials have not commented reports by the Kurdish administration in northern Iraq that two more airstrikes took place on Monday and early Tuesday. But Turkish surveillance planes were spotted early Tuesday flying over Cukurca in the Hakkari Province of Turkey’s far southeast, along the border with Iraq, and also above the Kanimasi region in northern Iraq, and shelling was heard, the semi-official Anatolian news agency reported.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin