Turkish troops invade northern Iraq

The attack was the first ground invasion of Iraq by Turkish troops since the United States invaded and occupied the country in 2003. Turkey conducted several major military sweeps against the PKK in the 1990s, while Saddam Hussein was still in power. Hussein backed the operations since he was himself engaged in bloody repression against Kurdish nationalist elements.

There were conflicting reports about the scale of the operation. The Turkish television network NTV, which is privately owned, said 10,000 troops were engaged in the offensive and had crossed six miles into Iraq in the Hakurk region, south of the town of Cukurca.

The Turkish press hailed the invasion in stridently chauvinist terms, with the daily newspaper Hurriyet reporting it under the headline, “Ten Thousand Heroes in Northern Iraq.”