Turkish warplanes conducted new air strikes on Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq today, likely in response to violence blamed on the Kurdistan Workers Party (P.K.K.). At least two soldiers and two village militiamen were killed in separate attacks on the Turkish side of the border, while a grenade wounded four laborers. A day earlier, Iran also renewed their border-clearing mission after a month’s respite for Ramadan. Yesterday’s Iranian cross-border operations killed a young shepherd. Meanwhile, M.P. Salim Kako, speaking for the Kurdish Parliament, said they are asking the P.K.K. and the offshoot Party Of A Free Life Of Kurdistan (P.J.A.K.) rebels to abandon their bases within Iraqi Kurdistan and move their operations elsewhere.
Iraqi officials said that all but eight fugitives from a Mosul prison have been accounted for. They revealed that three escapees were found drowned. A fourth drowning victim was reported earlier. The rest of the 35 men were recaptured. The men were held on terror-related charges, but it is unclear if they had already been convicted. Many Iraqis have been held in the prison system for years without benefit of a trial. Some of them have even been tortured in secret prisons, including detainees from Ninewa province, where Mosul is located.
At least four Iraqis were killed and four more were wounded in light violence elsewere.
Elsewhere in Mosul, gunmen killed an off-duty soldier. A border guard was killed and his brother was wounded during a home invasion.
A roadside bomb exploded near a car in Falluja killed the driver and wounded the passenger. A sticky bomb killed a government employee.
A bomb targeting a parliamentarian near his Muqdadiya home wounded his bodyguard and damaged his home.
In Baghdad, gunmen shot a police officer and wounded him on Palestine Street. Gunmen attacked two ministry employees, but neither was wounded.
