“Air operations were carried out on terrorist targets in the regions of Metina, Hakurk, Gara and Qandil,” the ministry said in a statement on Saturday.
The nine Turkish soldiers were killed during clashes that followed an attempted intrusion at their military base near the northern Iraqi city of Metina, the ministry added, revising upward an earlier toll. Another four soldiers were wounded.
Turkey’s armed forces reported on Saturday evening that they had targeted 54 locations, including caves, bunkers, shelters and fuel dumps belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the YPG (People’s Protection Units).
The YPG is a Syrian Kurdish militia which is a central element of US-allied forces in a coalition against Islamic State.
Ankara has operated several dozen military posts in the area for the past 25 years in its decades-old war against the PKK, a group blacklisted by Turkey and many of its western allies as a terrorist organisation.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan held an emergency security meeting on Saturday in Istanbul to discuss the surge in attacks on troops in the region. The country’s foreign, defence and interior ministers attended, as well as the head of the armed forces and the intelligence service.
Meanwhile, 113 people were arrested for suspected links with the PKK in nationwide raids on Saturday, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya wrote on X, formerly Twitter.
