Agence France-Presse,
Arbil, Iraq: Turkish warplanes bombed three Iraqi villages near the border town of Zakho in northern Iraq's autonomous Kurdish region on Tuesday but caused no casualties, a security official said.
The bombings were carried out before dawn on villages known to be frequented by fighters of the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Batoufa and Darkar districts of northern Iraq, the Kurdish official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
He said a small disused police checkpoint was shelled in a separate incident.
“There were no casualties in any of the incidents,” the official said.
Turkish television channels said warplanes had pounded a suspected Kurdish rebel position a few kilometres (miles) inside Iraqi territory.
The CNN-Turk and NTV news channels, quoting local news agencies, said the target was an abandoned police post built under Saddam Hussein in the Vansora district near Zakho, the closest Iraqi town to the Turkish border.
The Turkish general staff was not immediately available for comment and Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters he was “not aware” of such action.
The Turkish parliament last month authorised the government to order troops into northern Iraq if necessary to strike at bases used by the PKK to launch attacks into Turkish territory.
Turkey subsequently massed some 100,000 troops and military equipment on the Iraqi border.
During a meeting at the White House last week between Erdogan and US President George W. Bush, the United States promised to provide Turkey with real time intelligence to strike at the PKK.
