Turkish air strikes kill 19 Kurdish militants in north Iraq - military sources

DIYARBAKIR, Dec 10 (Reuters) - Turkish jets carried out air strikes against Kurdish militants in the Gara region of northern Iraq on Friday and killed 19 militants, Turkish military sources said on Saturday.

The warplanes took off from an air base in Diyarbakir in response to threats that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants were preparing an attack on military units at the border, the sources said.

Turkey frequently launches air attacks against PKK targets in the mountainous regions of northern Iraq near the Turkish border, where the Kurdish militant group's leadership has camps.

A ceasefire between the autonomy-seeking PKK and the state fell apart last year, triggering some of the worst violence in the three decades of the Kurdish insurgency.</s>ANKARA (dpa-AFX) - The Turkish air force has killed 19 Kurdistan Workers' Party fighters in the Gara area of northern Iraq, the state run Anadolu news agency reported Saturday.



In a statement, the Turkish General Staff said that the Turkish jets eliminated 19 terrorists in a security operation, while destructing five shelters of them and a logistics center.



More than 70 PKK and Daesh terrorists have been killed in Turkish air strikes across eastern and southeastern Turkey and northern Syria over the past week, the military said in a separate statement. The military had also dismantled 50 shelters of the PPK fighters during the operations.



Meanwhile, the PKK fighters detonated a vehicle bomb before a gendarmerie station in southeastern Diyarbakir province early in the day, but no causalities have been reported.



An operation is being carried out by the authorities to find the offenders.



Copyright RTT News/dpa-AFX</s>Most of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces fighting the Islamic State group in Syria are Kurdish (AFP Photo/DELIL SOULEIMAN)

Washington (AFP) - The US military is working to ease simmering tensions between Syrian Kurdish rebels and Turkey, both fighting the Islamic State group in northern Syria, US defense officials said Thursday.

A US-led coalition has trained and armed the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces -- most of whom are Kurdish -- to attack the IS group.

Turkey, a key NATO ally, has also entered Syria, where it, too, is fighting the jihadist group.

But Turkish troops are positioned behind the Kurdish YPG -- considered by Ankara to be a terrorist offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984.

Turkish troops have attacked Kurdish forces multiple times since Ankara entered Syria in August.

"This week, we're facilitating joint discussions with Turkey, the SDF and other coalition partners to promote deescalation in the area," coalition spokesman Colonel John Dorrian said.

"Every party to these discussions has an overriding interest in common -- this is the defeat of ISIL, an enemy that threatens us all," he added, using an alternate acronym for the IS group.

Turkey, which has also sent troops into northern Iraq, is focused on preventing the Kurdish peshmerga there and the YPG in Syria from linking up and forming a contiguous proto-state along the Turkish border.

Ankara has repeatedly said it would not allow a "terror corridor" on its southern frontier and that it wants to prevent the joining of the Kurdish "cantons" of Afrin and Kobane.

A senior US military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said Kurdish forces had slowed their advance on the IS Syrian stronghold of Raqa because they are worried the Turks will attack them.

"Their biggest concern is the Turks behind them are threatening to attack them and that's what caused them to hesitate to move forward," the official said.
Turkish fighter jets kill 19 suspected Kurdish militants in strikes on the Gara region in northern Iraq.