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Alalam News
October 13, 2007

Turkey Troops on Alert

DUHUK, Iraq, Oct 13–Iraqi Kurdish military sources on Saturday said
that Turkish forces’ concentrations increased near Iraq borders and US
troops were watching on the situation, while local residents claimed
Turkish soldiers attacked an Iraqi village with machine guns.

The tension on the borders escalated after the Turkish Prime Minster
Rajab Tayyeb Erdogan expressed his country’s readiness to face
criticism on incursion into northern Iraq.

"Turkey deployed additional forces near the Iraq borders, particularly
in the areas of Shirnakh, Jazzera and Silopi," a Kurdish military
source told the independent news agency Voices of Iraq (VOI).

Another Kurdish military source said that the US forces kept watching
on the Turkish concentrations, but he declined to say how.

On Tuesday, Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan gave the green light
for a possible military incursion into northern Iraq to chase the
PKK’s fighters hiding there after a series of deadly attacks on
Turkish security forces.

Meanwhile, local residents from the Iraqi Kurdish villages near the
borders with Turkey said forces, believed to be Turkish, attacked,
Saturday before dawn, an Iraqi village with machine guns sending the
population into a panic.

Another local resident said "there were no human losses but the
villagers went in a panic."

Turkey claims 3,000 fighters from the Turkish banned Kurdistan Workers
Party (PKK) are using the mountainous areas of northern Iraq as base
to launch attacks on Turkish targets.