BAGHDAD, Oct. 24, 2007
Turks Hit Suspected Kurdish Rebels In Iraq
Tension On Border Increases Despite Feverish Diplomacy, Turkey "Cannot Wait Forever"
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Play CBS Video Video Turkey Wants Action Turkey is calling for action from Iraq to stop attacks by the Kurdish PKK rebels, but to do that Iraq would need help from U.S. troops, which are already stretched too thin. Charlie D'Agata reports.
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Video Growing Tensions In Turkey Up to the Minute Contriubutor Frank Ucciardo examines the growing tensions between the Kurds and Turkey after the PTT attacks Turkish border troops.
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U.S. Army troops guard a checkpoint in the Mansour district in western Baghdad. The death toll for U.S. soldiers, as well as Iraqi civilians, is on pace to decline for a second straight month in October. (AP Photo/Wisam Sami)
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A Turkish soldier holds his machine gun as patrols the area near Turkey-Iraq border, atop of an armored vehicle, in the province of Sirnak, Turkey, Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007. (AP Photo/Darko Bandic)
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Interactive The Kurds And Northern Iraq Learn about the Kurdish people and their leaders, key cities in Northern Iraq and the potential for conflict with Turkey.
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Interactive Battle For Iraq The government, the insurgency, key players, background and photos.
Several F-16 warplanes loaded with bombs took off from an air base in southeastern city of Diyarbakir, private Dogan news agency and local reporters said.
There were no reports of a large-scale land invasion into Iraq.
Turkish artillery units have been shelling rebel positions as recently as Tuesday night in northern Iraq after a rebel ambush Sunday that killed 12 soldiers near the border, a government official said. He did not say which areas were targeted and refused to give further information. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.
Turkey delivered a tough message to Iraq and Western allies Tuesday: A cross-border attack on Kurd guerrilla bases is coming unless the U.S.-backed government in the Iraqi north cracks down soon.
"We cannot wait forever," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned during a visit to London, saying his government had no choice but to consider "the military dimension."
As Erdogan's government launched the diplomatic offensive in hopes of avoiding a conflict that could damage its ties with the West as well as Arab states, the looming possibility of a Turkish military drive into one of Iraq's few peaceful regions appeared to be having an impact.
Washington issued its most direct demand yet for anti-rebel measures from Iraqi Kurds who hold effective autonomy over territory where the Turkish Kurd rebels have camps, and Iraq's prime minister ordered the closure of all of the guerrilla movement's offices in Iraq.
Turks have grown skeptical of repeated pledges from the U.S. and Iraq to tackle the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, the PKK, so Erdogan went to London and his Cabinet ministers spread across the Middle East seeking to turn up the heat on the Americans and Iraqis to act.
Iraq's interior minister attended a meeting in Kuwait of his counterparts from the region Tuesday - a gathering which yielded a joint statement condemning an attack two days earlier on Turkish troops by Kurdish rebels.
The interior ministers of Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Syria, Turkey, Egypt and Iran met to discuss how help stabilize Iraq but ended up also addressing the rising tension on the Turkish and Iraqi borders.
The ministers condemned "all terrorist attacks against the Iraqi people, the Iraqi police... and against the neighboring countries and also condemn the terrorist attack against Turkish troops on October 21," said the meetings final statement, referring to the deaths of 12 soldiers and disappearance of another eight.
Kurdish Iraq is, at the moment, unique. People can go to work without expecting to be blown up on the way. Children can walk to school without fear of being kidnapped. The Kurdish government is even making deals with foreign companies to develop its oil reserves.
So, CBS News correspondent Elizabeth Palmer reports, the Kurds in northern Iraq have everything to lose by entering into combat with either the PKK, or the Turks. (Special Report)
Sending their well-armed Peshmerga soldiers to battle either group could lead the region into the same kind of violence that has crippled the rest of Iraq.
In other developments:
Meanwhile, the private security firm Blackwater says the deaths of four of its guards in Fallujah, Iraq, three and a-half years ago could not have been avoided.
In a report prepared for the U-S Congress, Blackwater says heavier guns and sturdier trucks would not have saved the team that was brutally killed after being lured by corrupt Iraqi forces into a well-planned ambush.
This conclusion sharply contradicts the findings of a congressional investigation led by House Democrats and a wrongful death lawsuit filed by the families of the four slain guards.
Blackwater is cast in both as an incompetent, penny-pinching outfit that sent an undermanned and poorly equipped detail through Fallujah, a known insurgent stronghold.
© MMVII, CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.
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- Terrorists will built a tourism center in Iraq for the journalists :) . Everyone find terrorists In Iraq but US couldnt find them.
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- Maliki can''t even maintain order in Baghdad...he has no chance of doing squat in the mountains of Kurdistan. I''m surprised the Turks have waited so long to move against the PKK...what will be interesting, from a military standpoint, is whether or not the Kurds have learned anything from the successes of the Hezballah against the Israelis...if they have, this will have effect in Ankara far worse than the IDF''s defeat had in Tel Aviv--and the discredit will be laid at the feet of the Islamists.
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- this is total ***. the PKK are terrorists and the US government should be helping Turkey to kill or capture them. unless we as americans are going to redefine a terrorist attack as an attack on white people. the kurdish people need to know that they will loose everything they have worked for the past 5 years if they harbor terrorists.
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- American hypocrisy
The US forces have provided PKK terrorists infiltrating Turkey with intelligence information to help them against Turkish military.
News outlets said over 200 Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) terrorists carrying heavy machine guns, rocket launchers and anti-aircraft Dushka trespassed into Turkey and launched an attack on a military base in the village of Daghlica.
But the US military reconnaissance satellites and air patrols along the rugged Turkish-Iraqi border declined to inform Turkey''''s officials of the PKK penetration.
According to informed sources, US Appache helicopters helped the PKK cross-border raiders flee back into northern Iraq by tipping them off about the Turkish military''''s tracking course.
The US had also blocked the Turkish military''''s satellite and telecommunication links in the course of the operations, the sources added.
A Turkish soldier, who sustained injuries in the raid, said that Turkish helicopters reached the combat zone three and a half hours later only after the troops had ran out of all their ammunition.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community including the US. The group has been blamed for thousands of bombings, assassinations, kidnappings and acts of sabotage for the past two decades. - Reply to this comment
- jowand,,,, Here''s another example from your favorite Fox News -- They say it was a recent Al Queda report that started the California fires,,,,, They usse a report over 4 years old & it was for the middle of summer & not in California ------- You should know by now not to trust anything that comes out of this White House or there moronic mirrors
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- jowand,,, You should learn more about the problem,,,,,, The PKK & the otner mountain people Bush is funding & suppling to attack in Iran are the same people, they are all loyal to the same PKK General --
-- As in everything else in Iraq, the War on Terror & the USA,,,, Bush lies on what he does tell you & still doesn''t tell you half the information you need to make a judgement - Reply to this comment
- The country of Turkey is a slaughter machine. they have killed and oppressed the Kurds for decades, they have taken all of Kurdish land, they have slaughtered a million Armenians and now they are at it again. They are killing the Kurds in Iraq now. this is supposed to be a no fly zone, but Turkey has gotten around that, and is calling it an attack on terrorism. This now makes it ok for this filthy killing machine to eliminate innocent Kurds. What a murderous regime this is.
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- And, back to topic, jowang, why do you say this is Pelosi"s fault. The conflict with the Iraq Kurds and Turk-Kurds has been going on for he11, centuries. Since loony-toon invaded and brought instability to a whole friggin country, the time is ripe for those folks to start hookin and jabbin. With bullets. To them it probably seemed like the thing to do, to see who gets a bigger piece of the pie. A black gold pie.
Posted by drummer94 at 07:13 PM : Oct 24, 2007
We were getting Turkey''s cooperation on Iraq and things were under control with the the handling of the PPK, until Pelosi and friends opened their big fat mouths all of ginning 08 votes in the USA. You can talk, make all the excuses, spin it and squirm all you want; this s-c-r-e-w-u-p is all Pelosi''s doing, no trail to anyone else on this one other than perhaps moveon.o-r-g-a-s-m aka SOROS INC.. - Reply to this comment
- rerrorislam3, lars that is too funny. You gotta know that unless you stop with the copcrap you''re gonna be booted. And, back to topic, jowang, why do you say this is Pelosi"s fault. The conflict with the Iraq Kurds and Turk-Kurds has been going on for he11, centuries. Since loony-toon invaded and brought instability to a whole friggin country, the time is ripe for those folks to start hookin and jabbin. With bullets. To them it probably seemed like the thing to do, to see who gets a bigger piece of the pie. A black gold pie.
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- jowand,,,,, Keep your head in a closet if you want to, It''''s not helping our country in the least bit. PBS has won awards for being the most unbiased news source
Posted by j-whitman at 01:55 PM : Oct 24, 2007
FINALLY WHITNEY ADMITS AL QUAEDA TERROR CONNECTION TO IRAQ
So this is an absolute admission by you WHITNEY that the Public TV report, The Terror Connection, about Saddam training terrorist for Al Quaeda and Bin Laden going to a graduation class in Iraq is absolutley true according to you WHITNEY. - Reply to this comment
Author Thomas Friedman on Obama's Afghanistan plan and the war on terror.
