16 the Turkish military said its aircraft attacked PKK positions in the Kandil Mountains, where thousands of the PKK terrorists are holed up. Two days later the Turkish army said troops penetrated into northern Iraq from the southeastern Turkish province of Hakkari in an operation Iraqi officials said about 500 troops took part in. On Saturday, the military announced in a statement that new aerial strikes had been made against PKK targets inside northern Iraq.In the same statement, the military also said hundreds of the PKK terrorists were killed in the first attack on Dec. 16, although it was not possible to determine the exact number of PKK casualties due to difficulties of assessing damage in mountain caves.

The PKK, however, denied it had suffered any casualties from theaerial strikes or the troops' incursion in December.

Abdul Rahman Chaderchi, a senior member of the PKK, told Reuters the Turkish attacks had only killed five members of the anti-Iranian Party for a Free Life in Kurdistan (PJAK), an offshoot of the PKK.

Turkish news reports said as many as 300 terrorists were killed in the Dec. 16 attack. A report in daily Hürriyet said the PKK's main wireless station used for communication among its members in the region was also destroyed in the attacks.

Daily Zaman, reporting on Saturday's aerial strikes, said the attack had targeted a group of 40 PKK leaders who had fled the Kandil Mountain area in anticipation of further attacks by the Turkish military. In Saturday's attack, fighter jets bombed PKK targets in the Zap and