Turkish troops could re-enter Iraq

by Al Jazeera (reposted)

Sat, Mar 1, 2008 10:49AM

Saturday, March 1, 2008 : Turkish officials have said that troops may launch another incursion into northern Iraq to battle fighters belonging to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The warning came a day after the country ended its ground offensive and withdrew its forces from the area.

Turkey sent thousands of troops across the border on February 21, with the stated aim of defeating PKK fighters, using the region as a base.

In a statement on Friday, Ankara said troops were returning home after the Turkish military had "achieved its initial targets".

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For more information: http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/164...

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by Al-Ahram Weekly (reposted)

Sat, Mar 1, 2008 3:01PM

Backed by helicopter gunships and F-16 fighter bombers, Turkish commandos attacked bases of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq 21 February in Turkey's first major ground operation into the country in more than a decade.

The Turkish army appears to have met with fierce resistance. No independent figures are available for casualties. The Turkish General Staff released a statement which claimed that in four days of fighting it had killed 153 PKK militants with a loss of 20 members of the Turkish security forces. However, many of the PKK casualties were assumed to have been killed in air strikes or artillery bombardments. The figure is unlikely to be precise.

Turkish media claimed that up to 10,000 troops backed by tanks crossed the border in a full-scale invasion. Although the Turkish military has still not released details of the size of the operation, both US-led Coalition forces in Baghdad, who have the area under constant surveillance, and Iraqi Kurds on the ground in northern Iraq reported that the incursion was much smaller, involving only a few hundred soldiers.

The main target of the incursion appears to have been the PKK's forward bases in the mountains along Iraq's border with Turkey. The PKK is believed to have over 3,000 militants under arms in northern Iraq, many of them waiting out the winter before the spring thaw melts the snow in the mountain and enables them to infiltrate back into Turkey to resume the organisation's 23-year-old insurgency.

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http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2008/886/re1.htm

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