Leader says PKK will resist Turkish incursion into Iraq

Above: PKK fighters in Iraq.

The top commander of a Kurdish rebel group said his forces would resist any Turkish military incursion aimed at destroying rebel bases in northern Iraq, a news agency reported Saturday.

Turkey has been building up its military forces on the Iraqi border in recent weeks, amid debate among political and military leaders about whether to attack rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, who stage raids in southeast Turkey from hideouts in Iraq.

"No one should expect us to extend our necks as sheep to be slaughtered in the face of an attack aimed at destroying us," Firat news agency quoted the rebel commander, Murat Karayilan, as saying.

Despite the bold rhetoric, however, analysts say the guerrillas would probably not stand and fight. Instead, they might seek safety in cave complexes or run deeper inside northern Iraq, leaving Turkey with what could turn into an open-ended and costly deployment inside Iraq.

Read the rest at the Guardian

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