ANKARA, Turkey - Turkey's military said Friday that its air strikes in northern Iraq last week killed 25 Kurdish rebels and wounded many more.
Military spokesman Brig. Gen. Metin Gurak cited intelligence reports for the casualty figures from the Oct. 17 attacks on Qandil Mountain -- an area where Kurdish rebels are said to train and where their leadership is believed to be in hiding.
There was no immediate comment from the rebels, and the figures could not be verified independently.
The military has staged several cross border air strikes since Kurdish rebels killed about two dozen Turkish soldiers in attacks earlier this month. Turkey also increased pressure on the local Iraqi Kurdish administration to crack down on the group, which carries out attacks from bases in Iraqi territory.
Turkish military units on the Iranian border and in the province of Hakkari, bordering both Iran and Iraq, have repelled two major rebel attacks this week, Gurak said.
He also urged calm after a week of violent protests across the country sparked by allegations that Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan was mistreated in prison. The government has strongly denied the allegations. Ocalan is serving a life sentence on a prison island off Istanbul for leading a separatist war for autonomy in Turkey's southeast.
Police clashed with Kurdish protesters who torched dozens of vehicles and shops, mostly in Istanbul and the Kurdish-dominated southeast, where the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, have been fighting for self-rule since 1984.
Turkey has carried out several aerial attacks and one major ground operation against rebel bases across the border with Iraq this year.
