Turkish commandos beef up deployment along Iraqi borders

BAGHDAD / IraqiNews.com: Turkish commandos backed by helicopters deployed along the Iraqi border Monday after Kurdish guerrillas killed 11 soldiers at the weekend in one of the deadliest attacks for years in their separatist war, Reuters reported. In Ankara, President Abdullah Gul chaired an emergency security meeting, attended by Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan and military leaders, as pressure mounted for the government to rein in violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast. The deployment has boosted troop numbers well into the thousands along the border with Iraq, where Kurdish rebels are based. “Helicopter gunships bombed suspected positions of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels group in the mountains in the provinces of Hakkari and Sirnak,” security sources said. More than 40,000 people, mainly Kurds, have been killed since the PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. “A review of intelligence and the structure of personnel in the region was discussed,” a statement from Gul’s office said after the security summit. SH (P) 2