Turkish planes bomb Kurdish rebel targets in Iraq

ARBIL, Iraq (Reuters) - Turkish warplanes bombed 70 Kurdish guerrilla targets inside northern Iraq on Monday in one of the biggest raids for weeks, Turkey's General Staff said.

The Turkish military said its planes had carried out a series of strikes in the Avasin-Basyan and Hakurk regions against the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in one of the largest attacks since 200 targets were hit on December 16.

"Some 70 targets came under fire and our planes, which completed their duties successfully, returned to their bases safely at 3:15 p.m. (1315 GMT)," the military said in statement. It said the raids began at around 3 a.m. (2400 GMT Sunday).

The military said only confirmed PKK targets had been attacked and the "greatest efforts" had been made to minimize the impact of the operation on the civilian population.

A senior Iraqi border security official said five aircraft had been involved in initial raids on three villages. Hours later, two planes carried out strikes against another three locations. He had no information on casualties or damage.

Turkey has been carrying out periodic raids on PKK positions in the mountainous region near Turkey's border to try to crush the rebel group, which wants a separate Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey.

After the attack in mid-December, officials in northern Iraq said bombs had hit villages, killed one woman and forced hundreds to flee.

The Iraqi security official said the raids had targeted the villages of Khunera, Khwa Kourk and Berkum just inside Iraq.

Jabbar Yawar, a spokesman for Peshmerga security forces in Iraq's largely autonomous region of Kurdistan, said Turkish planes had attacked the Khwa Kourk area for three hours.

He said it was very difficult to know how many targets had been hit as it was a largely unpopulated area. He also had no information about casualties.

Ankara says 3,000 PKK rebels are based in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq, from where they launch raids inside Turkey.

About 100,000 Turkish troops are massed along the border with Iraq but Ankara is not expected to launch a major cross-border land incursion.

Turkey, the United States and the European Union class the PKK as a terrorist group.

Ankara blames the PKK for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people since the group began its armed struggle for a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

Turkey, which says it has the right under international law to carry out cross-border attacks, has regularly attacked PKK targets in the past few months.

(additional reporting by Daren Butler in Ankara; Writing by Michael Holden; Editing by Elizabeth Piper)