Turkish infantry enter Iraq territory

MOSUL, Iraq, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) --Turkish troops entered the Iraqi territories in the northern Kurdish autonomous region early on Tuesday, targeting Kurdish rebels, spokesman from the Kurdish border guards said.

"About 100 Turkish troops carrying light weapons entered the mountainous Bradrak area near the border," the spokesman told Xinhua on condition of anonymity.

There were no reports of clashes in the area, he said, adding that he expected that the Turkish troops received intelligence reports about the presence of the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) fighters.

Overnight, the Turkish artillery shelled two villages near the border in Duhuk Province bordering Turkey, causing material casualties, the source added.

On Sunday, the Turkish warplanes carried out air strikes at some villages near the border in the Qandil mountains, killing a woman and wounding six people, according to a Kurdish security source.

A statement from the Turkish General Staff posted on its Web site said the Turkish warplanes bombed positions of PKK rebels in northern Iraq.

The Turkish military has launched several cross-border attacks recently in a bid to fight separatist PKK rebels, who use northern Iraq as a launch pad for attacks against Turkey.

Security operations are underway in southeastern and eastern Turkey as 100,000 Turkish troops have massed along Turkish-Iraqi borders in preparations for a possible cross-border operation to crush about 3,000-strong PKK rebels.

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.