Turkish war went on carrying airstrikes against Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq overnight, as the rebels said Ankara troops crossed the border into Iraqi territories.

Turkish war went on carrying airstrikes against Kurdish rebel bases in northern Iraq overnight, as the rebels said Ankara troops crossed the border into Iraqi territories.

Turkish jets kept up bombing raids in Diyarbakir, the regional capital of the mainly Kurdish southeast, in revenge for the attack that killed 24 Turkish soldiers earlier on Wednesday.

The Turkish army said Friday that the air and ground strikes against the rebels are "mainly" in Turkey.
"While the majority of the land and air operations are in (Turkey), mainly in the Cukurca region, ground and air strikes are ongoing in a few points in northern Iraq across the border," the army said in a statement posted on its website.

For its part, Kurdish news agency Firatnews quoted sources from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) as saying that a small group of specially trained Turkish troops crossed into Iraq from the villages of Yekmal and Bilecan on the Turkish side of the border and entered the Dola Sulo region in Haftanin.

On Thursday, the Turkish army  initiated "a large-scale land operation" with 22 battalions against the rebels in five separate spots inside and across the border, according to the general staff. The ground incursion is supported with air strikes, it said.
"The air and land operation is under way," Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told reporters right after the military announcement.

Around 10,000 soldiers took part in the operation, Turkish media reported Friday. Some 6,000 of them were Special Forces, the daily Sabah said.
The battalions comprise commando units as well as gendarmerie and special forces, the army has said, without specifying how many had entered Iraq.