Turkish troops mass at Iraq border

CIZRE, Turkey -- Turkey is stepping up its presence along its border with Iraq to levels not seen in years in an effort to root out Kurdish separatist guerrillas who take refuge in northern Iraq.

That means that as the US military struggles to control the violence in central Iraq, a second conflict could spill across its northern border.

And while reports this week of a large Turkish military push into Iraq seem to have been untrue, the army is acting with greater urgency here in the southeast, home to a Kurdish minority that accounts for an estimated one-fifth of Turkey's population.

On Wednesday the military announced it was establishing "security zones" in three districts, including Sirnak, east of here, a step reminiscent of emergency rule imposed on this area until 2002 in an effort to destroy a militant group of Kurdish separatists.

That group, the Kurdistan Worker's Party, has carried out violent attacks in Turkey since the 1980s, fighting for a separate Kurdish state. It has recently stepped up attacks against Turkish soldiers: Militants killed seven on Monday by hiding in a food delivery vehicle. Three forest rangers were killed yesterday in an ambush.

"Every day they are attacking our soldiers," said an official in Sirnak, a town just north of the Iraq border with several military bases nearby.

Both Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates have warned Turkey against military action, and Turkey is unlikely to buck its American ally.

That would embarrass the United States and be seen as a broad indictment of its Iraq policy.