The Turkish military said Tuesday its air attacks on northern Iraq had killed between 90 and 100 Kurdish rebels and injured another 80 over the past few days as an Iraqi Kurdish leader called for an end to the raids.

The toll was the first issued by the army since it resumed a bombing campaign against bases of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the Iraqi mountains on August 17 after a lull of more than a year.

The renewed campaign was in response to a PKK attack that killed nine security personnel in southeast Turkey.

The army statement, which used the word "neutralised" to refer to dead rebels, stressed that the toll was provisional and calculated after reconnaissance flights over the targeted area.

The rebels however said only three PKK fighters were killed in Dohouk province.

"For now, today, there were no raids. Everything is calm," said Ahmet Deniz, a spokesman for the PKK in Iraq.

The president of Iraq's autonomous Kurdistan region, Massud Barzani, meanwhile expressed concern about civilian casualties and denounced Turkish military operations.

"I call on Turkey to stop these operations. Actions that injure people and destroy their property cannot be justified," he said in a statement released Monday.

Since early July, PKK attacks in Turkey have left around 40 soldiers and policemen dead, prompting Ankara to toughen its stance in the conflict.

Last week, Ankara launched a new counter-insurgency strategy involving the use of professional military troops as well as special and heavily-armed police units.

On Monday the PKK said that three Kurdish separatists had been killed in Turkey's bombing campaign on their bases in northern Iraq.

A rebel spokesman threatened "war" in case of more strikes.

Monday's bombing came a day after an Iraqi family of seven were killed in a Turkish strike on a vehicle in Kortek, according to Jabbar Yawar, a top Iraqi Kurdish official.

The Turkish army specified that 14 installations, eight depots of foodstuffs, one of munitions, nine anti-aircraft guns, 18 caves and 79 ammunition caches were hit during its operations, stressing that meticulous planning was used to avoid areas of civilian population.

Early Tuesday, in a separate incident, a group of rebels attacked a police post in Ergani, in southeast Turkey, killing one soldier and injuring three others, a security source said.

The army estimates that around 2,000 Kurdish rebels are holed up in the zone in northern Iraq which is administered by Iraqi Kurds.

The Turkish military launched a first wave of bomb attacks on August 17 against PKK targets in Iraq after rebels killed nine members of a military unit in Cukurca, southeast Turkey.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeast Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.

As well as its air strikes, the Turkish army has carried out several land incursions into northern Iraq in recent years in order to strike at the rebels there.

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