October 26, 2007	Friday	Shawwal 13, 1428

ISTANBUL: Turkey has options if it decides to launch a major assault on Kurdish rebels in Iraq: airstrikes on suspected hideouts, helicopter-borne, commando raids under cover of night, and the long-term occupation of a “buffer” zone to seal off mountainous routes across the border.

But the tactics, or some combination of them, have limits against an austere foe familiar with the harsh terrain in northern Iraq and adept at hit-and-run attacks as well as laying roadside bombs. Winter is drawing near, and rain and snow could slow or halt tanks and helicopters of the second largest army in Nato after the United States.

The onset of cold weather will also signal an end to the traditional fighting season of the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, whose fighters have less mobility when snow blocks mountain passes. That entails a likely reduction in separatist raids, and their withdrawal from camps near the border to areas deeper inside Iraq.

“An autumn operation, when the campaigning season is already drawing to a close, is likely to have only a limited effect on the PKK’s ability to return to the offensive once the winter snows begin to melt in spring 2008,” Gareth Jenkins wrote in an analysis for The Jamestown Foundation, a national security policy institute in Washington.

The PKK, which has fought for autonomy for Turkish Kurds since 1984, is seen as having provoked Turkey into planning an attack on Iraq. Rebels possibly believe Turkey’s larger troop numbers and heavy guns and armour will count for little in mountains where speed and stealth are key, leading to a messy conflict that alienates the Turkish government from its international allies as well as moderate Kurds at home.

The military challenges of going alone in Iraq partly explain why Turkey, which launched several offensives involving tens of thousands of troops in Iraq in the 1990s but was unable to eradicate the PKK, is reluctant to charge into what some Turkish commentators are already calling a “quagmire.”

For now, Turkey’s leaders are pursuing a diplomatic track, pressuring the United States and Iraq to crack down on the PKK. They know a cross-border campaign would hurt ties with Washington, which views an incursion as a threat to stability in northern Iraq, and could undermine efforts to join the European Union, which demands more rights for Kurds and other minorities as a condition of membership.

An operation in Iraq is unlikely to have the willing participation of Iraqi Kurds who could provide assistance such as choking off PKK supply lines.

Turkey is already testing the waters with cross-border shelling, and Turkish units are conducting “hot pursuits,” limited raids on the Iraqi side that sometimes last no more than a few hours.

On Sunday, Turkey sent AH-1 SuperCobra helicopter gunships up to five kilometres inside Iraq hours after guerillas killed 12 soldiers in an ambush on the Turkish side of the border, a Turkish military official said on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak to the media.

On Wednesday, Turkey warplanes and helicopter gunships reportedly attacked positions of Kurdish fighters along the rugged border with Iraq.

Soner Cagaptay, director of the Turkish program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, said Turkey could stage a limited incursion along a corridor about 30 to 50 kilometers into Iraq, where steep mountains that form the border become more manageable hills.

Cagaptay noted the area is far from large population centers and would be “marginal in its impact on the daily life of Iraqis.”

Necati Ozgen, a former Turkish army general, said rebel bases are 20 to 30 kilometers south of the 330-kilometer-long border between Iraq and Turkey.

“In order to get a decisive result, this area needs to be held under control for a long period of time,” Ozgen said in an interview with Associated Press television. “An operation that will last a week, where soldiers will go in and out quickly, will bear no result.”

However, Ozgen said there are probably few people in the PKK camps now, and that Turkey should instead conduct a spring offensive. Turkish military intelligence estimates there are up to 5,000 PKK rebels, most of them inside Iraq; the Pentagon has said 60,000 Turkish soldiers are deployed on the border. Many soldiers are conscripts without training in counterinsurgency.—AP