Kurdish Soldiers in Iraq Caught Between Competing Allegiances

Turkey's military released few details of the fighting Saturday, saying only that Turkish forces were battling Kurdish guerrillas in four areas in Iraq's Kurdish north. The military said on its Web site that the guerrillas were trying to flee south in a "panicked state."

The news dominated Turkish television, which broadcast clip after clip of Turkish soldiers in white winter camouflage rolling up mountains in open-sided trucks. Crawls across television screens provided a running tally of the military's figure for guerrillas killed. Turkish news media said the country's jets were striking as far as 10 miles into northern Iraq.

A PKK spokesman, Ahmed Denize, said small teams of PKK fighters continued to strike the Turkish military in quick ambushes from multiple locations. He said that the fighters had taken the corpses of 15 Turkish soldiers, a claim that could not be verified.

Many of the mountain bases hit by Turkey's military were probably only sparsely populated by the guerrillas, who often leave their mountain camps to spend winters in lower-lying villages. Turkey's government approved a cross-border incursion last year, and an early spring offensive such as the one launched Thursday had been widely expected, giving rebels months to prepare. The Kurdish government has effectively allowed the PKK to create a mini-state along the border where they can live unchallenged.

Sardar Kakameen, the mayor of Deralouk, a Kurdish town in northern Iraq near the border, said that the bombing campaign in recent months has been the most intense he has seen and that more than 100 villages have emptied out as residents have moved in with relatives in his city and in neighboring areas.

"Because of the bombing, there is nobody left in the area," he said. "The civilian people are the ones who have suffered the most from this bombing."

Three days ago, mortar shells began to rain down on the tree farms and apple orchards in Hish, a predominantly Christian village along the border, residents said.

"The bombing came down directly in our area, it was very strong," said Fual Hoshaba Kashool, 43, a farmer from the village. Kashool and his family, 12 people in all, fled on foot at dawn to the nearby town of Sheladeze. The next day, the Avamarke bridge was destroyed, cutting off the one road to home.

"Fortunately, all the humans were safe; we ran away, but our lands were destroyed," Kashool said. "And now our problem is we left all our belongings on the other side of the bridge and we can't bring them back."

Another villager who fled, Abdul Rahman Piro, 50, said he believed that Turkey wanted to drive out all civilians from the area. "There is no difference between us and the PKK to them," he said. "We are all Kurds."

Knickmeyer reported from Istanbul. Special correspondent Dlovan Brwari in Balinda contributed to this report.