According to a statement issued by the Turkish General Staff late Sunday, eight members of the armed forces were killed when a helicopter they were traveling in crashed. The statement said the helicopter came down due to unknown technical failure, though the PKK have claimed that some of its members shot the aircraft down.
With the death of the eight personnel in the helicopter crash the total number of Turkish troops killed in the operation against the PKK in northern Iraq, launched on Thursday night, has risen to 15.
The General Staff said that 33 members of the PKK had been eliminated during operations Sunday, taking the number of those killed to 112, excluding others killed during artillery bombardments and air strikes.
A number of terrorist hideouts, and the terrorist elements were neutralized Sunday through air strikes and attacks by troops, the statement said.
“Many terrorist shelters and logistic installations and weapons and ammunition in the hideouts were destroyed during the operations,” the statement said. “All natural and artificial installations, constituting terrorist infrastructure in the region were destroyed in a way that can not be repaired in a short time. Planes belonging to Turkish Air Forces destroyed 63 targets, which were determined to include terrorists.”
The General Staff said that the operation in northern Iraq would continue for as long as was deemed necessary.
