Turkey’s air force bombarded Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq this week, killing 67 rebel fighters, the military said Saturday, the first such strikes in nearly a month.

Turkey's air force bombarded Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in northern Iraq this week, killing 67 rebel fighters, the military said Saturday, the first such strikes in nearly a month.

The air strikes, carried out by 14 F-16 and F-4 fighter-bombers, hit camps and other installations run by the PKK, the military said in a statement carried by local media.

It is the first such operation against PKK bases in Iraq since February 18, when the air force launched raids in retaliation for a suicide bombing in Ankara that killed 29 people, which Turkey blamed on Kurdish rebels.

The Ankara attack, which targeted a convoy of five buses carrying army staff, was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), who have been linked to the PKK.

Turkey has in recent months waged an all-out assault on the PKK, which launched an insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, fighting for greater autonomy and rights for the country's largest ethnic minority.