The dull thud of mortar shells echoes across the barren mountains separating Turkey from Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq. Columns of armoured vehicles trundle along the border as Turkish F-16 fighter jets screech over their targets: rebels of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (pkk). On a nearby peak hundreds of Kurdish "peace mothers" keep vigil for their sons; some of them soldiers in the Turkish army, others pkk fighters inside Iraq. They won't come down, they say, until Turkey halts its air strikes. The army is blocking buses containing thousands of Kurds who want to join the protests, paralysing traffic in the narrow mountain roads. "They are being used by the PKK-we won't allow it," says a stony-faced corporal.
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