Turkey's military said it attacked Kurdish bases in northern Iraq Saturday for the third time in less than a week, bombing and shelling positions and warning more will follow. "Turkish aircraft attacked between 1:35 pm and 2:00 pm major positions of the terrorist organisation" PKK, before Turkish artillery shelled the area for 15 minutes, the military said in a statement on its website.
The Turkish television channel NTV said the raids were in the Amadiyah area of northern Iraq. "It will become well understood how effective the operations against the terrorist operations are," the military's statement said. The PKK "no longer has a chance of success" against the Turkish army. Actions over recent weeks had left "hundreds of terrorists" dead, it added, according to AFP.
In northern Iraq, Jabbar Yawar, spokesman for the Iraqi Kurdish Peshmerga security force, said Turkish warplanes had hit isolated Kurdish villages. "In the afternoon Turkish warplanes entered northern Iraqi airspace in an area called Al-Amadiyah. Later at around 4:00 pm they bombed Iraqi Kurdish villages. We do not know the extent of damage. But these areas are largely deserted and are along the border with Turkey," Yawar told AFP.
Meanwhile, an al Qaeda-linked group in Iraq has confirmed the death of Abu Maysara, a top operative who the U.S. military said was killed in a clash last month. According to a recording posted on the Web, Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, leader of the Islamic State in Iraq, hailed Maysara as "a martyr who was a scholar and a mujahid (holy war fighter)", on the audio tape posted on Islamist Web sites.
The U.S. military said earlier in December that Maysara, a Syrian, was among nine senior al Qaeda members killed in November. Baghdadi called on his followers to keep fighting during the current Eid al-Adha feast, when Muslims sacrifice animals.
"May God accept your sacrifice, and may they be the apostates of the Awakening Councils, who are servants of the Crusaders," Baghdadi said.
