Clashes kill 33 Kurds, 8 Turkish soldiers

At least 33 Kurdish separatists and eight Turkish soldiers were killed Sunday, the fourth day of a cross-border offensive against rebel hide-outs in northern Iraq, Turkey’s military said.

A military helicopter crashed in the mountain terrain, but it wasn’t immediately clear whether the eight soldiers were aboard the aircraft.

The rebels said they had shot it down, but Turkey did not confirm that. At least 112 members of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, have been killed in the offensive, along with 15 soldiers, the Turkish military said on its website. The rebels have disputed the figures but had not immediately supplied their own.

Iraqi security forces have so far stayed out of the fighting.

The incursion is the first confirmed Turkish military ground operation in Iraq since the U.S.-led invasion in 2003.

The PKK is fighting for autonomy in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey and has carried out attacks on Turkish targets from bases in the semiautonomous Kurdish region of northern Iraq.