Turkey launches airstrikes against Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria after 9 soldiers were killed

AP: Turkey carried out airstrikes targeting Kurdish militants in neighboring Iraq and Syria on Saturday, the Turkish Defense Ministry said. This comes a day after an attack on a Turkish military base in Iraq killed nine Turkish soldiers.

Turkey often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s.

The defense ministry said aircraft struck targets in Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil in north Iraq, but didn't specify areas in Syria. It said fighter jets destroyed caves, bunkers, shelters and oil facilities “to eliminate terrorist attacks against our people and security forces ... and to ensure our border security." The statement added “many” militants were “neutralized” in the strikes.

On Friday night, attackers attempted to infiltrate a military base in northern Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdish region, killing five soldiers. Four others died later of critical injuries. The Turkish Defense Ministry said 15 militants were also killed.

There was no immediate comment from the PKK, the government in Baghdad or the Kurdish region's administration.

Three weeks ago, PKK-affiliated militants tried to break into a Turkish base in northern Iraq, according to Turkish officials, leaving six soldiers dead. The following day, six more Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes.

Turkey retaliated by launching strikes against sites that officials said were associated with the PKK in Iraq and Syria. Defense Minister Yasar Guler said at the time that dozens of Kurdish militants were killed in airstrikes and land assaults.

It wasn’t immediately clear if Friday night's attack and the one three weeks earlier targeted the same base. The Rudaw news website, based in Erbil in northern Iraq, reported that the base attacked on Friday was located on Mount Zap in Amedi district, which lies 17 kilometers (10 miles) from the Turkish border.

Meanwhile, Turkey’s state-run news agency Anadolu said a senior PKK militant was “neutralized” in Iraq. Faik Aydin was targeted in an operation run by the Turkish intelligence agency, or MIT, some 160 kilometers (100 miles) inside the Turkey-Iraq frontier, Anadolu reported.

The PKK, which maintains bases in northern Iraq, is considered a terror organization by Turkey’s Western allies, including the United States. Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.