Turkey pounds Kurdish rebel bases in Iraq after Ankara bombing

Ankara: Turkish warplanes on Monday struck Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq a day after a deadly bomb attack in the capital killed 36 people, the army said.

The fighter jets hit arms depots and shelters of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers` Party (PKK) in the mountainous Kandil and Kara regions in northern Iraq, the army said, quoted by the state-run Anatolia news agency.

The targets were hit "with precision", it added.

A PKK military spokesman in Iraq said the air raids struck the Kandil mountains north of Arbil and the Mount Kara area, north of Dohuk.

"The strikes by Turkish aircraft were carried out between 3:00 (0000 GMT) and 5:00 this morning on Qandil and Mount Kara," Bakhtiar Dogan told AFP.

 

"For now, we don`t have an accurate picture of the damage caused by the strikes," he said, adding that a statement would be issued later Monday.

No-one has claimed Sunday`s bomb attack in Ankara which hit a busy transport hub in the heart of the city of five million people.

Turkey has in recent months waged an all-out assault on the PKK, which launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, fighting for greater autonomy and rights for the country`s largest ethnic minority.

After the collapse of a fragile truce, deadly clashes resumed last year between security forces and rebels in the Kurdish-dominated southeast.

In February, Turkey also carried out artillery bombardments on Kurdish fighters in Syria.