By Xinhua
Mosul, Iraq : Turkish aircraft and artillery pounded Iraqi areas near the border in Duhuk province on Tuesday without causing casualties, a Kurdish security source said.
“The Turkish aircraft and artillery shelled in the morning the villages of Narwa, Raykan and Nahaly near the town of Amadiyah in Duhuk province,” the source, from the Kurdish border guards, told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.
The attacks, which targeted areas close to the Iraqi border with Turkey, caused no casualties, the source said.
Earlier in the day, the Turkish General Staff had said that Turkish airplanes hit targets of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) in north of Iraq.
The General Staff said in a statement posted on its website that Turkish jets bombed PKK targets in Zap-Sivi, Avasin-Basyan and Hakurk regions in north of Iraq.
“We have targeted only the PKK camps in the air strike. The General Staff is sensitive not to affect civilian people in the region,” said the statement, adding that Turkish jets had accomplished their mission and returned safely to their bases.
The Turkish military has recently launched several cross-border attacks to fight against PKK separatists, who use the Kurdish autonomous region in northern Iraq as a launch pad for attacks against Turkey.
The PKK, listed by the United States and Turkey as a terrorist group, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. More than 30,000 people have been killed in the over-two-decade conflict.