ANKARA, Oct 17: Turkish warplanes bombed Kurdish guerilla targets in northern Iraq on Friday, killing four PKK rebels in the latest of a series of aerial bombardments this month, military sources said.

The air strikes in northern Iraq’s Qandil mountains started at noon local time (0900 GMT) and continued into the afternoon, said the sources, who declined to be named.

The militants have killed a number of Turkish soldiers in recent weeks, piling pressure on the government and military to strike back.

Turkey’s military said on Friday that it believed 35 Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels had been killed in the recent fighting in southeast Turkey.

The military told reporters they had picked up communication between rebels where they referred to the deaths of PKK members in clashes this week on Cudi mountain in Sirnak, near the border with Iraq.

On Thursday, five soldiers and five PKK rebels were killed in clashes. The Turkish military said one of its helicopters had crashed because of a technical failure, killing a soldier and wounding 15. The PKK said it had shot the helicopter down.

—Reuters