Fifteen Turkish soldiers and 23 Kurdish rebels were killed after an audacious rebel attack on a military post near the Iraqi border, which prompted a crushing military air and ground response, an army spokesman said yesterday.
Two other soldiers remained unaccounted for after Friday’s attack on the border station in Semdinli Town in Hakkari Province, General Metin Gurak, the head of the general staff’s press department told the Anatolia news agency.
Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels launched the assault on the base — where a company of paramilitary soldiers were based — under cover of heavy weapons’ fire from bases in northern Iraq.
“Most of our losses were caused by heavy weapons’ fire from the north of Iraq,” Gurak said.
Turkish forces responded with artillery fire and attack helicopters pounded rebel positions while additional forces were dispatched to the area, he said.
Turkish fighter jets and artillery units also struck at a group of rebels in the north of Iraq, about 10km from the station under attack, Gurak said.
“Twenty-three terrorists were neutralized in the clashes. It is not yet clear how many terrorists were killed by artillery fire and in the strikes by the air force,” he said.
The fighting also left two soldiers with heavy injuries, he added.
Friday’s attack comes a day after the end of a three-day ceasefire the PKK announced for Id-al-Fitr, the Muslim festival marking the end of Ramadan, the holy month of fasting.
The PKK — considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and the EU — has been fighting for a separate state in the mainly Kurdish southeast of Turkey since 1984.
Turkey claims that thousands of PKK militants are holed up in rear bases in the autonomous Kurdish north of Iraq from where they stage cross-border attacks on Turkish targets.
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