The outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been leading a 25-year insurgency against Turkey, has recently stepped up its attacks, prompting the army to carry out at least two air raids and a small-scale ground incursion on rebel bases in northern Iraq.

The majority of the PKK losses came from a May 20 air strike on rebel hideouts in the Hakurk region of northern Iraq following intelligence that a large group of militants were moving towards Turkey, General Fahri Kir, the head of the internal security operations department, said.

"It has been understood from information obtained that (the rebels) suffered more than 100 losses," Kir told a press conference here.

Thirty other PKK rebels were neutralized since the beginning of March, excluding those captured alive, the general said, adding: "Therefore, it is understood that their losses are about 130 over the past four months."

Forty-three members of the security forces had been killed in the same period, he added.

Kir said at least five militants were killed in a cross-border ground operation Wednesday into northern Iraq, backed by an air raid, in pursuit of rebels who had attacked border guards in the province of Sirnak.

Intercepted wireless communication between the rebels "shows that their losses are... about 20," the general said.

The soldiers taking part in the incursion returned to their bases the same day, he added.

There have been almost daily clashes and daring rebel attacks since June 1 when the PKK declared an end to a unilateral ceasefire which had been in place since April 2009.

Kir said the PKK was trying to increase its attacks and spread them to areas outside the southeast, its usual theatre of operations, in a bid to solidify control over its forces and pressure the Ankara government to accept them as an interlocutor.

"Our evaluation is that the separatist terrorist organization will continue to intensify its attacks until it believes it has created the image that it has sufficient influence over its grassroots and public opinion, that it controls the process and has seized the initiative," the general added.

In the latest violence, a PKK rebel was killed and two others captured in fighting late Thursday in northeastern Turkey, a region where the rebels have been seeking a foothold, Kir said.

In the southeastern province of Hakkari, on the border with Iraq, a village guard -- a Kurdish militia paid and armed by the state to fight the PKK -- was killed and three others wounded when they came under rebel fire also late Thursday.

The armed forces will pursue the PKK "with determination and patience until the separatist terrorist organization is neutralized," Kir said.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community, picked up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.

Last year, the government announced it would expand freedoms for its Kurdish population in a bid to cut popular support for the PKK and encourage the rebels to lay down their arms.

The initiative however has since faltered as the country's top court banned the main Kurdish party, leading to Kurdish riots, and public opinion largely turned against the government amid bloody PKK attacks.

Last month, PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, serving a life sentence in Turkey, was quoted as saying that he was abandoning efforts to seek dialogue with Ankara "since I could not find an interlocutor."

Turkey refuses to talk to the PKK and says the rebels whould either abandon their armed struggle or face the army.