"The 16 targets in the Qandil region were hit with full accuracy last (Thursday) night," General Metin Gurak, the head of the general staff's press department, told a weekly press briefing here.

All the planes returned safely to base and damage assessment was underway, he added.

Earlier, a local official of Iraq's autonomous northern Kurdish region also confirmed that Turkish jets had bombed several areas near Qandil Mountains -- a major stronghold of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) -- along the border with Turkey and Iran.

The bombing targeting the Zarawah and Senkser districts took place at around 10:15 pm (1915 GMT) Thursday and continued till midnight, Azad Wasso, local administrator for the Zarwah district, told AFP.

He said the bombings caused no casualties, but PKK spokesman Ahmed Danis said a rebel was wounded in the attack.

Under a one-year parliamentary authorization obtained last October, the Turkish army has carried out air strikes and a week-long ground incursion against PKK rebel targets, using intelligence passed on by Turkey's close ally, the United States.

The army has described the raids as successful and said they inflicted massive damage and casualties on PKK militants.

The authorisation expires on October 17 and the Turkish government said last week it will ask parliament to extend the mandate by one year when lawmakers return from summer recess in early October.

The PKK -- considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union -- has been fighting for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast and east of Turkey since 1984, in a conflict that has claimed some 44,000 lives.

Turkey claims that thousands of PKK militants are holed up in rear bases in northern Iraq from where they stage cross-border attacks on Turkish targets.

In the latest episode of bloodshed inside Turkey, a soldier was killed in a clash with PKK rebels late Thursday near Mount Cudi, in the southeastern Turkish province of Sirnak on the border with Iraq, General Gurak said.

Turkish soldiers killed six PKK rebels in a separate security operation, also late Thursday, in a rural area near Eruh town, in the neighbouring Siirt province, he added.

Gurak said fighting this month alone had claimed the lives of 45 PKK rebels and 17 members of the Turkish security forces.

burs-BA-han/eb