ANKARA, Oct 6: Turkey’s military stepped up an aerial bombing campaign against suspected Kurdish rebels in northern Iraq on Monday after its 15 soldiers were killed in a cross-border attack on Friday.

Public anger is mounting after the attack the deadliest against the military in one year and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and the powerful military have pledged to intensify a campaign to crush the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

The incident has strained ties between Iraq and Turkey, which accuses its neighbour of not doing enough to combat the PKK rebels based in mountainous northern Iraq. Two soldiers were wounded in Friday’s attack, in which the rebels used heavy weapons, and two were missing.

“The military continues to follow terrorist members who took part in the Oct 3 attack,” the General Staff said in a statement, announcing the second such aerial attack on rebel bases in northern Iraq since the PKK ambush.

“Our warplanes achieved their mission and came back to base safely,” the statement said.

It said the raid targeted a group of PKK militants holed up in the Avasin Basyan region. There was no immediate indication of whether the raids had caused casualties or what damage had been caused.

Nato-member Turkey has attacked PKK bases in northern Iraq several times over the past 12 months but has confined itself to shelling and air strikes since a brief land offensive in February.

In a display of nationwide indignation, mourners booed Erdogan and President Abdullah Gul during funerals on Sunday for some of the soldiers killed. Waving Turkish flags, thousands poured into the streets across the country in mourning.

MISSING SOLDIERS: Kurdish PKK rebels said on Monday they were holding the two Turkish soldiers who went missing.

“We have two Turkish soldiers. I cannot confirm if they are dead or alive. We will announce this soon,” PKK spokesman Ahmed Danees told a journalist based in Kurdish northern Iraq.

A large-scale offensive against the PKK in Iraq would draw sharp criticism from Turkey’s main ally, the United States, and the European Union, which Ankara wants to join.

Washington and Brussels are concerned that a large-scale Turkish operation in northern Iraq would further destabilise Iraq and the wider region.

Several thousand PKK fighters are believed to be based in northern Iraq, from where they stage attacks on mainly military targets in southeast Turkey. Forcing them out of the mountains is likely to require more than sporadic air raids.

Turkey blames the PKK, considered a terrorist organisation by the United States and the EU, for the deaths of more than 40,000 people since it launched its armed campaign for an ethnic Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey in 1984.

Analysts said the PKK, weakened by regular air strikes, appeared to have timed the ambush carefully, striking shortly before the winter snows make a large incursion improbable.

Parliament is likely to approve on Wednesday a government request for an extension of its mandate to launch military operations against the PKK in Iraq as needed. The current mandate expires on Oct 17.

Turkey’s constitutional court is considering whether to ban the country’s largest pro-Kurdish party, the Democratic Society party (DTP), for alleged links to the PKK.

Banning the DTP would bolster the image of the PKK, which says armed struggle is the only way to achieve Kurdish political and cultural rights denied by the Turkish state.—Reuters