Turkey aircraft hit suspected Kurd rebel sites

U.S. can do little, official warns
Top NATO commander Gen. John Craddock, the senior U.S. soldier in Europe, indicated that he could do little to stop a Turkish incursion.

Craddock was asked by reporters in Washington whether he can influence Turkey’s actions in terms of Iraq.

“I won’t say in terms of Iraq,” he said. “I will say that I talk with my counterparts, military leaders in Turkey, frequently, and we discuss issues about their border. And I’ll leave it at that.”

The latest Turkish military activity followed attacks by rebels that have killed 15 soldiers since Sunday.

Turkish troops were blocking rebel escape routes into Iraq while F-16 and F-14 warplanes and Cobra helicopters dropped bombs on possible hideouts, Dogan news agency reported. The military had dispatched tanks to the region to support the operation against the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which the U.S. has branded a terrorist organization.

Blast kills 1, injures 4
Also Wednesday, assailants hurled a hand grenade at a police vehicle in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir, killing a police officer and wounding four other people, according to reports and officials. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Kurdish rebels have carried out similar attacks.

Elsewhere, authorities detained 20 Kurds, including eight women, at the Habur border gate with Iraq, the Sirnak governor’s office said.

State-run Anatolia news agency said the suspects — most of them university students — were detained as they entered Turkey.

Turkish military leaders have described an incursion as a necessary tactic to push back the rebels and disrupt their safe havens and supply lines. The government is also deeply frustrated at its inability to curb attacks by concentrating on operations within its own borders, and under pressure to show resolve to an outraged public.

But such an operation could harm relations with Washington, create instability across the border and destroy livelihoods in the poor region. Turkey provides electricity and oil products to the Iraqi Kurdish administration in northern Iraq, and the annual trade volume at Habur gate, the main border crossing, is more than $10 billion.

“If this border gate is closed because of war, then everybody in this region will suffer,” said Mehmet Yavuz, a Turkish truck driver, hauling cement to the Iraqi Kurdish city of Irbil. “This border gate is daily bread for us.”

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