WASHINGTON: Turkey on Sunday launched the biggest attack on Iraq since the US invasion in 2003, sending more than 50 warplanes to bomb suspected Kurdish insurgent bases deep inside Iraqi territory, accompanied by long-range artillery shelling. Kurdish officials reported at least one civilian fatality, a woman, and two others injured.

The strike, carried out in the middle of the night, sent hundreds of families fleeing and added to the volatility of a region once considered Iraq’s most peaceful but now threatened with the prospect of a major showdown between Turkish forces and the PKK Kurdish rebels.

The bombardment targeted villages up to 60 miles from the Turkish border. The Turkish prime minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, said the attack had been a success and held out the prospect of more military action to come. “Our struggle will continue inside and outside Turkey with the same determination.”

The Turkish military claimed terrorist headquarters had been hit but local officials said the rebels had dispersed in recent weeks in anticipation of the strikes and that villages, not bases, had been hit. Until now, the military, which has thousands of troops massed along the border, has restricted itself to short “hot pursuit” cross-border raids and artillery fire.

The attack falls within the boundaries of a compromise worked out between Turkey and the US last month. The US military has enough problems coping with the rest of Iraq and is anxious to avoid seeing another front open up in the country’s relatively stable Kurdish autonomous region.

At a meeting in Washington President George Bush persuaded Erdogan to put off a full-scale land invasion of northern Iraq. In return, the US agreed to accept limited cross-border strikes and to provide US intelligence on Kurdish rebel movements. But Turkey still has tens of thousands of troops massed along the mountainous border with northern Iraq, along with tanks and artillery.

Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Cemil Cicek, refused to say on Sunday whether the US, with its powerful satellite surveillance, had provided the intelligence that resulted in yesterday’s air strikes.

Like Erdogan, he hinted that Turkey, a member of Nato, would press ahead with operations against rebel bases in northern Iraq “with determination when necessary”.

Both Turkey and the US classify the PKK as a terrorist organisation and Bush and Erdogan last month described it as “a common enemy”. It has carried out a series of attacks inside Turkey as part of a campaign for autonomy for the huge Kurdish population in eastern Turkey.

The planes hit targets inside Iraq close to the Turkish border, as well as positions in the Qandil mountains roughly 60 miles from the border.

Abdullah Ibrahim, a senior official in Sangasar, in the Iraqi Kurdish region, said Turkish warplanes bombarded 10 Kurdish villages, killing one woman and injuring two others. He acknowledged there were Kurdish rebel bases in the area but said they were far from the villages that were hit.

“The villagers are now scared and are hiding in nearby caves. They lost all their properties,” Ibrahim said.

The leaders of Iraq’s Kurdish region have mixed feelings about the PKK, torn between fears of a full-scale Turkish invasion and a reluctance to turn on fellow Kurds.

This was reflected in the relatively moderate response of a spokesman for the Kurdish regional government, Jamal Abdullah, who said: “We call on the Turkish army to differentiate between the PKK and the ordinary people. We don’t want the conflict between the Turkish troops and the PKK to turn into a conflict between the Turkish forces and the people of Kurdistan.

Turkey’s parliament voted in October in favour of authorising the government to order a cross-border operation against the PKK. —Dawn/The Guardian News Service