DW-World.de
Deutsche Welle

The Turkish military has announced that it sent several hundred special forces troops across the Iraqi border on Tuesday. However, it was not immediately clear if the incursion into Sirnak and Hakkari provinces was linked to earlier clashes with Kurdish PKK insurgents that left four Turkish soldiers dead. Turkey has 100,000 troops stationed along its border with Iraq and has threatened to attack Kurdish separatist hideouts in the Iraqi north if Baghdad could not control the rebels on its territory. In a pre-dawn raid on Tuesday, Turkish helicopter gunships reportedly bombed several abandoned villages inside Iraq.  No casualties were reported.