![Turkey has launched air strikes on Kurdish militants in neighbouring Iraq and Syria. (AP PHOTO) Turkey has launched air strikes on Kurdish militants in neighbouring Iraq and Syria. (AP PHOTO)](/images/transform/v1/crop/frm/silverstone-feed-data/ea349f1d-6c83-4caa-aae9-27cac0ca4a4e.jpg/r0_0_800_600_w1200_h678_fmax.jpg)
Turkey has carried out air strikes targeting Kurdish militants in neighbouring Iraq and Syria, its defence ministry says.
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The Saturday strikes came a day after an attack on a Turkish military base in Iraq killed nine Turkish soldiers.
Turkey often launches strikes against targets in Syria and Iraq it believes to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a banned Kurdish separatist group that has waged an insurgency against Turkey since the 1980s.
The defence ministry said aircraft struck targets Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil in north Iraq, but did not specify which areas in Syria.
It said fighter jets destroyed caves, bunkers, shelters and oil facilities "to eliminate terrorist attacks against our people and security forces ... and to ensure our border security".
The statement said "many" militants were "neutralised" in the strikes.
On Friday night, attackers attempted to infiltrate a military base in northern Iraq's semi-autonomous Kurdish region, killing five soldiers.
Another four died later of critical injuries.
The Turkish defence ministry said 15 militants were also killed.
There was no immediate comment from the PKK, the government in Baghdad or the administration in the semi-autonomous northern Kurdish region in Iraq.
Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan expressed his condolences on social media platform X.
"We will fight to the end against the PKK terrorist organisation within and outside our borders," he wrote.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was to hold a security meeting in Istanbul later on Saturday, the Turkish president's communications director Fahrettin Altun wrote on X.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said police had detained 113 people suspected of ties to the PKK following raids across 32 Turkish provinces.
Three weeks ago, PKK-affiliated militants tried to break into a Turkish base in northern Iraq, according to Turkish officials, leaving six soldiers dead.
The following day, six more Turkish soldiers were killed in clashes.
Turkey retaliated by launching strikes against sites that officials said were associated with the PKK in Iraq and Syria.
The PKK, which maintains bases in northern Iraq, is considered a terror organisation by Turkey's Western allies including the United States.
Tens of thousands of people have died since the start of the conflict in 1984.
Turkey and the US disagree on the status of the Syrian Kurdish groups, which have been allied with Washington in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria.
Australian Associated Press