The strikes on April 29 and 30 also destroyed several hideouts and weapons depots used by the rebels, the agency said, without citing sources.

A PKK spokesman denied the report and put rebel losses at two.

"Only two PKK members were killed by the Turkish attacks that took place... in the Zap area of Dohuk," Ahmed Denis told AFP.

The Turkish army has not made a statement on the possible casualties of the raids which it said targeted the Zap and Avashin-Basyan region of the Kurdish-held autonomous north of Iraq.

The raids took place a day after a powerful bomb blast blamed on the PKK killed nine soldiers in Diyarbakir in Turkey's southeast and the militants shot dead a soldier near the town of Semdinli, close to the border with Iraq.

The PKK, blacklisted as a "terrorist" organisation by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.

Turkish warplanes have been hitting the PKK in northern Iraq under a parliamentary authorisation first obtained in October 2007 and extended for another year in October last year.

burs-han/lth

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