RANIA, Iraq, Aug 23 (Reuters) - Turkey's military said on Tuesday it had killed up to 100 Kurdish rebels in six days of air strikes on northern Iraq as guerrillas launched more attacks inside Turkey and Iraqi Kurds mourned their dead.
Turkey’s strikes are the first in the mountains of northern Iraq in more than a year and are meant as retaliation for an escalation of guerrilla attacks after the collapse of efforts to negotiate a settlement to the 27-year-old conflict.
In the town of Rania in Iraq’s northern Kurdish region, relatives of seven Iraqis killed in an air strike on Sunday — the first civilian casualties since the raids began last Wednesday — questioned the Turkish tactics as they grieved the loss of a family, including young children.
"They were just farmers. They didn’t cause problems for anyone. I want to ask why they were killed," Yaqub Mustafa, the brother of Hussein Mustafa, who was killed along with his family in the strike, told Reuters.
"My brother was not a politician. He was not a soldier. He was not a fighter. So why did they attack him?" he said, standing outside the mosque in Rania where photographs of the deceased family were pinned to the wall.
The pictures showed Hussein with his wife, three children and two grandchildren.
The attacks have angered residents of the semi-autonomous Kurdish region, a relatively safe haven in war-torn Iraq where Turkish investors have flocked in recent years to build homes, offices and shopping malls.
At least 2,000 people protested on Sunday in Rania as the victims were buried, said Mayor Barham Ahmed Hama Rasheed, who called on the United Nations to intervene and stop the shelling.
"This is all so sad. They were just young children who were killed. We see the Turkish government on television, saying they are going to help the people in Somalia, and they come here to kill our children," said Rania resident Saman Eskander.
Both Iraq’s central government in Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government in Arbil have condemned the shelling.
REBELS DISMISS TURKISH FIGURES
A Turkish military statement said warplanes had struck 132 targets of the PKK, which uses the region as a base to launch attacks on Turkey in its fight for Kurdish self-rule.
"According to initial information 90-100 terrorists were rendered ineffective," according to the General Staff, using an expression referring to the killing of militants. "The air and ground operations will continue," the military added.
The military said definite figures on PKK casualties were not available, but it had information that more than 80 militants were also wounded in the operations, which hit 73 shelters, eight stores and nine anti-aircraft positions.
PKK official Rozh Willat said the Turkish military figures were wrong.
"We considered this part of the psychological war waged by the Turkish army and (Prime Minister Tayyip) Erdogan’s government against the Kurdish people," he said. "The real number is three martyrs only, and we do not have any wounded."
The casualty figures could not be independently confirmed.
REFUGEES
At least three small refugee camps have sprung up in the hills around Rania where people have gathered to escape recent clashes between Iranian security forces and Kurdish rebels, and the Turkish air strikes.
Aid agencies say Iranian shelling targeting the Free Life Party of Kurdistan (PJAK) group, an offshoot of the PKK, has killed some civilians and forced hundreds to flee their homes.
The Turkish government and military say air strikes are to deny rebels a haven there from which to attack Turkey.
Despite repeated air strikes on northern Iraq and cross-border military raids since the 1990s, PKK rebels are still able to launch attacks well inside Turkish territory.
One Turkish soldier was killed and three others wounded in an early morning attack by a large group of PKK fighters armed with rockets and rifles in Degirmendere village, some 300 km (190 miles) from the Iraqi border, security sources said.
Separately, PKK rebels also abducted five people working for three mobile phone companies in the Tatvan district of Bitlis province, security sources said, offering no further details.
PKK rebels have killed some 40 Turkish security personnel in just over a month. More than 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in 1984.
The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
