Kurds From Iraq Kill 17 Soldiers in Turkey

Turkey continued to shell the area along the northern Iraqi border late Sunday, residents and officials said. Some villagers reported that the pesh merga, the military force of the Kurdish regional government in northern Iraq, was moving toward the border.

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The Bush administration condemned the Kurdish assault. "These attacks are unacceptable and must stop now," said Gordon Johndroe, President Bush's national security spokesman.

Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish regional government, also condemned the attack but warned against a Turkish offensive into northern Iraq. "If this struggle touches the Kurdistan region, then we will defend our citizens," he said.

Iraqi residents of the border area braced for more of the violence that has destroyed parts of their villages and forced some of them to flee. Sabiha Khalil, 54, a widowed farmer from the village of Spindar, said the fighting reminded her of the days of Saddam Hussein, when a government campaign killed as many as 180,000 Kurds and drove many more from their homes.

"Now Turkey is taking Saddam Hussein's place," she said. "We were displaced from our village for 10 years, but we have rebuilt our homes and rehabilitated our farms. Now where should we go?

Suleiman Hamid, 33, a farmer who also lives in Spindar, said shelling on Sunday destroyed several houses and caused his children to wake up screaming. Many of his neighbors have fled, he said.

"I don't understand why the Turks are bombing us," he said. "There is no PKK here. Is their main goal to target the PKK, or just any Kurds?"

In Baghdad, the U.S. military and local residents offered different accounts of the raid into the heavily Shiite enclave of Sadr City, named for the father of Moqtada al-Sadr and a stronghold of his followers.

According to the military, U.S. troops entered the neighborhood at 4 a.m. to target a militia chief responsible for an extensive Iranian-backed kidnapping ring. His name was not released.

Gunmen then began firing automatic weapons and rocket-propelled grenades at the U.S. troops, the military said. It said ground forces returned fire, killing 33 fighters, then called in helicopter gunships, which killed six more.

As U.S. soldiers left the neighborhood at 7 a.m., they struck a roadside bomb but continued returning fire, killing 10 more, the military said. The target of the raid was not captured, and no U.S. troops were injured, military officials said.

But Sadr City residents and Iraqi officials said the only victims were civilians -- whom they described as 13 dead and 52 injured.