"Initial evaluations show all planned targets received direct hits," a general staff statement said, adding that casualty and damage assessment was continuing.

No civilians were targeted in Sunday's strikes on positions along the Turkish border and in the Qandil mountains to the east, where the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) is known to have a major base, it said.

"All targets were set after careful and detailed analysis and were included on the list after it was firmly determined that they were not in civilian inhabited areas," it said, denying reports that civilians were targeted.

The PKK said seven people were killed, two of them civilians.

Locals said schools and bridges were destroyed in the foothills of the Qandil mountains.

Turkish chief of staff General Yasar Buyukanit has said the United States gave tacit consent for the operation by providing "intelligence" and opening Iraqi airspace.

After talks with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan in Washington in November, US President George W. Bush called the PKK a "common enemy" and promised to provide Turkey with real-time intelligence on rebel movements.

Bush's pledge was seen as barely veiled US approval for limited cross-border Turkish strikes against PKK targets in northern Iraq.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, enjoys refuge in the rugged mountains of Kurdish-populated northern Iraq and uses bases there as a springboard for attacks in southeast Turkey.

It has waged a bloody campaign for Kurdish self-rule since 1984 in a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.