Pizzas galore!

“Facilities are being destroyed in a way that cannot be repaired and reused. Civilian infrastructure is not being damaged.”

Turkish commandos, backed by planes, helicopters and tanks, are believed to be operating as far south as Mount Qandil, the guerrilla headquarters near Iraq’s border with Iran.

Qandil is a prime target for the Turkish military, which has already launched air strikes there. The PKK’s senior leadership is believed to be based there, although some reports indicate that many guerrillas may have fled the area in anticipation of an attack.

Confirmation of exactly what the Turkish troops are doing in Iraq is difficult because the combat zone is a remote, mountainous area, much of it still covered in deep snow.

Firat, a pro-Kurdish news agency, said that Iraqi Kurd peshmergas had found the bodies of three Turkish soldiers who died of exposure during combat operations on Sunday, and turned them over to the Turkish military. This afternoon the Turkish army reported the deaths of two soldiers.

Firat also said that PKK guerrillas in winter camouflage had shot down a Turkish helicopter at the weekend, taking up positions under cover of darkness and waiting hours on the snowbound hillside to target the aircraft as several helicopters were flying low. It said the Turkish military stopped operations in the area for a while, and guerrillas were able to return to their bases without suffering any losses.

Turkey has acknowledged that a helicopter crashed in Iraq, and said that an investigation was under way. Two pilots were killed.

The Turkish military has reported the deaths of 17 military personnel and more than 150 rebels, while the PKK claims that only a few rebels and 81 soldiers have died. Neither report can be confirmed.

The PKK is fighting for autonomy in predominantly Kurdish southeastern Turkey, where the Turkish authorities have suppressed Kurdish culture. It has carried out attacks in Turkey from bases inside northern Iraq. The conflict started in 1984 and has killed up to 40,000 people.

A Turkish diplomatic delegation is due to meet the Iraqi President and Foreign Minister tomorrow to discuss the incursion.

Elsewhere in Iraq, a suicide bomber blew himself up inside a bus travelling from Mosul to Syria today, killing around nine passengers.

Lieutenant Colonel Jalal Dosky of the Iraqi army said that the attack took place near a checkpoint in an area called Smeirath, 50 miles (80km) north of Mosul, in northern Iraq.

The US military said in a statement: “During a stop at a routine checkpoint, the Iraqi army searched passengers for their identification cards. The suspected Al-Qaeda in Iraq suicide bomber exited the bus and then detonated the bomb.”

The US statement put the death toll at eight dead and eight wounded, but Colonel Dosky said at least nine died.

Meanwhile Iraqi police said that they had arrested five suspects in a dawn raid over a suicide bombing on Sunday. At least 48 people were killed and 68 wounded when a suicide bomber detonated his explosive jacket in Iskandiriyah, a town just south of Baghdad, at a rest stop used by pilgrims on their way to the holy Shia shrines at Karbala.

Following a tip off, police burst into a house in a residential complex in Iskandiriyah this morning and arrested the suspects.

Tens of thousands of Shia pilgrims from across Iraq are heading to Karbala, mostly on foot, to participate in Arbaeen, which commemorates the 40th day after Ashura, when the slaying of revered seventh century Imam Hussein is marked.

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