The official, who asked not to be named, said the bombardment took place north of the town of Dohuk near the border between 4:30 pm and 6:00 pm (1330 and 1500 GMT). There there was no word yet on casualties.

The official added that people in the nearby village of Dereluk were fleeing because of the sound of the shelling in the distance.

Last month Turkey's parliament extended by one year the government's mandate to strike the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in northern Iraq, where Turkish officials estimate about 2,000 fighters are hiding in the mountains.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 44,000 lives.