Turkish armed forces launched new airstrikes on the night of Friday to Saturday against Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels in mountainous areas of northern Iraq, both Ankara and sources in Iraq said yesterday.

“Exercising our right to legitimate defense (…) we conducted air operations against terrorist positions in northern Iraq”, more specifically in the “Ghara, Qandil and Asos” sectors, the Turkish Ministry of Defense announced.

The Turkish military, which frequently bombards the region, said 25 targets were hit, including “caves, strongholds, shelters, warehouses and facilities” of the PKK, a Kurdish separatist movement that has waged an armed struggle against the Turkish state since 1984 and is characterized as ” terrorist” organization by Ankara and its Western allies.

Asked about this by Agence France-Presse, a source in the security forces of northern Iraq spoke of “intense” shelling.

While according to Kamran Othman, a member of the Community Peacemakers Teams (CPT), an NGO that operates mainly in Iraqi Kurdistan, the strikes lasted about 45 minutes.

No civilian casualties were reported, the same source added, citing damage to crops.

The Turkish armed forces—whose operations are sometimes denounced by the Iraqi government—assured that they “neutralized” (ie killed) “many terrorists.”

PKK militants have rear bases in the autonomous Iraqi Kurdistan; however, Turkish military bases have also been located there for 25 years.

The CPT says it has counted 230 Turkish bombardments in northern Iraq since June 15, some of which have set crops on fire and displaced residents.

Turkish Defense Minister Yasar Guler reiterated on Friday, during an interview with Qatar’s Al Jazeera television network, that his government is “determined” to create a “safe zone” in northern Iraq, as in northern Syria, for the preventing any infiltration of “terrorists” into Turkish territory.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan boasted in mid-July that his country’s armed forces had succeeded in “eliminating” PKK militants in northern Iraq.