Turkish Helicopters Strike Inside Iraq (click here)
By YAHYA BARZANJI – Nov 13, 2007
SULAIMANIYAH, Iraq (AP) — Turkish helicopters swooped into Iraqi territory Tuesday, Iraqi officials said, firing on villages in renewed pressure to dislodge Turkish Kurd guerrillas from bases in northern Iraq used to stage cross-border raids.
The helicopter attack was the first major Turkish action against the rebels since Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan met with President Bush in Washington on Nov. 5. Turkey has demanded that the U.S. and Iraq crack down on guerrillas operating from Iraqi territory and has massed tens of thousands of soldiers along the border with Iraq.
The United States and Iraq have urged Turkey, a NATO member, to avoid a large-scale attack on rebel bases in northern Iraq, fearing such an operation would destabilize what has been the calmest region in the country.
A spokesman for the Iraqi Kurd regional administration, Jamal Abdullah, denied the helicopter attack report but said two Turkish warplanes dropped flares Monday in the mountains near the Iraqi town of Zakhu.
But Col. Hussein Tamir, an Iraqi army officer who supervises border guards, said the Turkish helicopters opened fire before dawn on abandoned villages northeast of Zakhu, an Iraqi Kurd town near the border with Turkey. There were no casualties, he said....
