Fighting in Iraqi Kurdistan Enters Fifth Day

Turkish troops this morning continued to fire on northern Iraq as clashes with militants from the Kurdistan Workers' party (PKK) entered a fifth day.

Last night the Turkish army said it had sent another 25 tanks across the border to help the hunt for PKK fighters, whom Turkey accuses of launching attacks on its forces from bases in the sparsely populated mountains along the Turkish-Iraqi border.

"The bombings are continuing by land and by air; the clashes are becoming heavier," a Turkish military source told the Reuters news agency.

Roj TV, the voice of the PKK, reported that 5,000 Turkish troops with 60 tanks had launched an offensive against the militants early yesterday in the Matin mountains. Ahmed Deniz, a PKK spokesman, told the Guardian that fierce fighting was continuing in several places along the border.

Since the major air and ground offensive began last week, Turkey says 15 of its soldiers and 112 militants have died. The PKK claims that 47 Turkish soldiers have been killed. The PKK spokesman said its fighters also brought down a Turkish army helicopter in the remote Chamsku area, close to the border. Turkey confirmed the loss of a helicopter, but said it was due to unknown reasons.

The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, insisted that the operation was limited. "Our Iraqi brothers should know that this operation is only to clean the terrorist camps and terrorists," he said.

Washington has sanctioned limited cross-border operations by Ankara against the PKK, which has been described by President George Bush as a "common enemy". It has provided the Turkish military with intelligence on the militants' positions and opened up Iraq's airspace to facilitate bombing raids.

Iraq's government criticized the offensive. "We know the threats that Turkey is facing, but military operations will not solve the PKK problem," said a government spokesman, Ali al-Dabbagh.

The incursions have raised tension in Iraqi Kurdistan, where there is anger with the US for giving the green light to Ankara. "We are their friends and we thought we were their allies," said Muhammad Qadir, a shopkeeper in Irbil. "We don't support the PKK, but we are angry that the Americans are allowing the Turks to wage war against our fellow Kurds."

Many Iraqi Kurds believe Turkish generals are using the presence of the PKK in Iraq as a pretext to destabilize the Kurdish autonomous area. Iraqi Kurdish leaders also complain that Turkish bombing has destroyed civilian infrastructure, including four bridges.

"This is going to destabilize security and safety of the region," Nechirvan Barzani, Iraqi Kurdistan's prime minister, told a news conference in Irbil. He said the region's authorities had taken steps over the past few months to crack down on the PKK, as requested by Ankara and the Americans. "The US told us the operations will be limited, and we expected the crisis would be over by the end of last year, yet unfortunately still it is ongoing," he said.

Kurdish military commanders say up to 30,000 Kurdish peshmerga forces have been deployed in the mountain regions and stand ready to defend Iraq should the Turks go too far or target civilians.