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Kurdish rebels killed in Turkish border raid

September 29, 2015

More than 30 Kurdish fighters have been killed in a cross-border operation in northern Iraq and southern Turkey. President Tayyip Erdogan said the rebels were fighting their "last struggle."

https://p.dw.com/p/1GfL9
Turkish soldiers patrol in the southeast of the country
Image: Reuters/Sertac Kayar

The Turkish military conducted the raid against militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) overnight on Tuesday along the country's border with Iraq, local officials said.

There were contradictory reports about the death toll, but Turkish President Erdogan said more than 30 Kurdish fighters were killed.

Erdogan insisted that the cross-border raids into Iraqi territory would continue, adding that "this is their (the PKK's) last struggle."

"We will keep on fighting relentlessly until the very end, God willing, we will reach the peace we have been longing for," he added.

Daily violence

Separately, two police officers were killed in the southern Turkish city of Adana late on Monday. The city's governor described how several assailants rode towards a hospital on a motorbike, firing at officers.

Four people were injured late on Monday after PKK rebels fired a rocket at a military convoy on a highway in southeast Turkey, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Meanwhile, a curfew was imposed in a mainly Kurdish southeastern town of Bismil after a 9-year-old girl was killed when the house she was staying in was struck by a Kurdish rocket.

Turkish military jet
Turkey has carried out air raids on PKK strongholds in the remote mountains of northern Iraq and south-eastern TurkeyImage: Getty Images/AFP

In recent weeks,Turkish warplanes have pounded PKK bases in several border regions, leading to a forceful fight back from the Kurdish group which Ankara considers a terrorist organization.

The PKK has carried out almost daily bomb and gun attacks, leaving dozens of police and soldiers dead.

Earlier this month, the Turkish government sent its special forces into Iraq to pursue Kurdish militants. Officials say hundreds of PKK rebels have been killed in the ground and air offensives since July.

Ceasefire canceled

The fighting has shattered a fragile peace process with the Kurds and worsened political tensions after pro-Kurdish parties broke the ruling AK Party's decade-long majority in a national poll in May, forcing a re-election. The political in-fighting has seen several pro-Kurdish MPs have been branded as PKK sympathizers, which they deny.

The US has also found itself in the middle of the conflict, as Turkey and the Kurdish militia, are both key allies in fighting "Islamic State" ("IS") in Syria and Iraq.

mm/kms (AFP, AP, Reuters)