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U.S. intel fuels Turkish strikes in Iraq

NORTHERN IRAQ — Turkish jet strikes, likely fed by U.S. Air Force-bolstered intelligence, struck Kurdish rebel targets Sunday near the Iraq border.

As many as 50 fighter jets were involved in the airstrikes, Turkish media reported. Turkey has recently attacked the area with ground-based artillery and helicopters and there have been some unconfirmed reports of strikes by warplanes.

Turkish leaders have clamored for attacks on Kurdish nationalist rebels — guerrilla-style fighters known as the PKK — since they began crossing into Turkey in October to carry out shoot-and-run attacks. This is the first major offensive by the Turks in Iraq since American political and military decision-makers, the Kurds’ de facto guardians, offered strategic use of Iraq’s airspace.

The Washington Post, quoting unnamed Pentagon officials, reported that U.S. military personnel have set up an intelligence-sharing center in Turkey where real-time intelligence from unmanned aerial vehicles and other aircraft is handed over to Turkish authorities. The Turks, according to the Post report, decide which targets to hit and notify the U.S.

But Iraqi leaders complained Monday that Turkey had not coordinated with Baghdad before sending dozens of warplanes to bomb Kurdish rebel targets in northern Iraq — the largest aerial attack in years against the outlawed separatist group. In Turkey, a U.S. Embassy official in Ankara said Washington was informed about the operation.

"It was a Turkish operation, it was a Turkish decision. We were informed," the official told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, as the official was not authorized to speak to the media.

Turkey is a NATO partner, a partner in stabilizing war-scarred Afghanistan and home to Incirlik Air Base, near the Mediterranean shore. The northwestern corner of Iraq, where the Kurds have been semiautonomous since the 1991 Persian Gulf War, is the country’s most stable and American-friendly region, especially after the Kurds suffered genocide at the hands of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein.