Turkish forces cross into Iraq for operation against Kurdish rebels

The attack targeted a minibus carrying police working in the Igdir region of eastern Turkey at the Dilucu border gate marking the border with Azerbaijan, security sources said.

Police officers seach the area near a destroyed police minibus following a bomb attack on September 8, 2015 in Igdir. At least 14 Turkish policemen were killed in a bomb attack in eastern Turkey blameShow more

ANKARA // Turkish special forces crossed into northern Iraq to pursue Kurdish militants on Tuesday for the first time since 2011, as military jets carried out more air strikes against rebel camps in the region.

A roadside bomb blamed on the rebels, meanwhile, killed 14 police officers in eastern Turkey.

The troops crossed the border as part of a “hot pursuit” of rebels belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, who were involved in a roadside bomb attack that killed 16 soldiers on Sunday, the official said.

“This is a short-term measure intended to prevent the terrorists’ escape,” a Turkish government official said, on condition of anonymity.

The official did not say how many troops crossed into Iraq, or exactly how long the operation would last.

Turkey’s military has carried out numerous air strikes and ground incursions into Iraqi territory in pursuit of the PKK over the past decades, but Tuesday’s invasion was the first since 2011 and comes amid a sharp spike in violence between the PKK and the security forces.

The Dogan news agency said two units of the Turkish special forces, supported by warplanes, were chasing two 20-strong groups of PKK militants.

A spokesman for PKK, Bakhtyar Dogan, said that the Turkish forces entered from Zagros mountains area in Iraqi Dahouk province. The spokesman said no clashes had erupted.

Earlier on Tuesday, Kurdish rebels were suspected of detonating a bomb in the eastern province of Igdir as a police vehicle escorting a group of customs officials to a border gate was passing by, the Anadolu Agency reported. Fourteen police officers were killed while others were wounded in the attack in the province that borders Armenia, the agency said.

The customs officials were going to a border crossing between Turkey and the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan following the kidnapping of a group of customs officials by Kurdish rebels. The kidnapped officials were released unharmed on Tuesday.

The 16 soldiers were killed in a similar attack by the PKK on Sunday. It was the deadliest assault on Turkish security forces since the renewed fighting erupted in July, derailing a peace process with the Kurds.

Turkey’s state-run news agency said Turkish jets carried out air strikes against a group of Kurdish rebels as well as the militants’ camps in northern Iraq. It said up to 40 rebels died in the overnight aerial operations.

The air strikes were confirmed by Firat news, a website close to the rebels.

Commentators have expressed alarm that the current situation increasingly resembles the worst days of the PKKs insurgency in the 1990s when attacks on this scale were commonplace.

“We did not and will not abandon the nation’s future to three or five terrorists,” Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a speech in Ankara.

But he promised that “with God’s permission, Turkey, which has overcome plenty of crises, will get over the plague of terror”.

Protests denouncing the PKK erupted in several cities across Turkey on Monday soon after the military announced the deaths of the 16 soldiers. The pro-Kurdish political party said several of its local branches were vandalised during the demonstrations.

More than 200 people have been killed in the renewed fighting between the PKK and the security forces since July, including around 100 soldiers and police officers.

It comes amid increased political uncertainty in Turkey. The country is holding a new election on Novembeer 1 following the ruling party’s failure to form a coalition government after an election in June.

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey since 1984, and is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its allies.

* Associated Press and Agence France-Presse