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Istanbul: More than 150 Kurdish rebels were killed in a cross-border air raid by Turkish military into northern Iraq earlier this week, according to Turkey's military.
Turkish warplanes successfully hit all their intended targets in a three-hour air operation on Mount Qandil in Iraq, the military said in a written statement on Saturday. The air raid ended early Friday, the military said.
It had earlier reported that its warplanes bombed havens of the Kurdish rebel group PKK deep inside Iraq but had not given any figures for rebel casualties.
The statement said, "According to initial assessments, more than 150 terrorists were rendered inefficient and the operation led to panic among the members of the terrorist organisation."
The military generally refers to killed rebels by saying they have been "rendered inefficient", a euphemism designed to distance Turkish soldiers from the brutality of killing.
On Friday, the military had released footage of the raid. It said 43 rebel targets, including 29 shelters, were attacked.
Then, the military said only that "a large number" of rebels had been killed. That was disputed by a rebel spokesman, who said no rebels had been killed or injured.
An official from Iraqi President Jalal Talabani's Patriotic Union of Kurdistan party said villagers told him four rebels were killed in the operation.
The Turkish military has launched several air assaults on Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq in recent months. In February, it staged a major ground offensive that lasted eight days. Since then, clashes between rebels and Turkish troops have erupted along Turkey's border with Iraq.
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