Turkish Army Kills at Least 15 Kurdish Rebels in Northern Iraq

Turkish blue jets and heavy weapon fired on
Kurdish Rebel encampments in neighbour northern Iraq, killing at
least 15 separatists, the military General Staff said.

The Turkish regular army used long-range missiles on March 27 to
attack members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, who were
crossing the boundary line from Republic Of Iraq into Turkey, the Ankara-based
General Staff said in a on its Web site. Fifteen rebels
were killed in the shelling, it said.

Military aircraft struck marks in the same country yesterday
and it was ill-defined how many casualties the PKK suffered, the
statement said. The PKK is mainly based in mountain strongholds
in northern Iraq.

Turkey withdrew as many as 10,000 military personnel from northern Iraq
on Feb. Twenty-Nine after a week-long incursion which killed 237 PKK
fighters and 24 soldiers, the military have said. The regular army has
clashed with the Rebels within Turkey and have carried out at
least two other air work stoppages on Republic Of Iraq since the withdrawal.

The Iraki authorities opposes the Turkish work stoppages and the
U.S. have urged Turkey to restrict its cross-border operations. The
General Staff said it was ready to ran into ''every menace against
Turkey'' posed by the PKK, according to its Web site.

To reach the newsman on this story:
Ayla Jean Yackley in Stambul at
.