Turkish air attacks on northern Iraq have killed between 90 and 100 Kurdish rebels and injured another 80, the army said on its website on Tuesday.

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 last Wednesday after a lull of more than a year.

Turkish jets carried out air strikes against a Kurdish separatist group's bases in north Iraq for a fifth day on Sunday, and began shelling for the first time, a rebel spokesman told AFP.

"At about 11:00 am (0800 GMT), Turkish aircraft started bombing five areas," Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) spokesman Ahmed Denis told AFP by telephone. He said the areas being bombed were Qandil, Khowakirk, Haftan, Jabal Mattine and Jabal Karra, all along Iraq's border with Turkey.

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned Saturday that relations with Israel will further deteriorate without an apology over a deadly 2010 flotilla raid.

"There can be no normalization with Israel if Turkey's demands are not met," the Anatolia news agency quoted him as saying during a visit to South Africa.

Opponents of Syrian President Bashar Assad were meeting Saturday in Istanbul to launch a "national council" to coordinate the fight against the Damascus regime, organizers said.

Participants in two days of meetings in an Istanbul hotel, from both inside and outside Syria, planned to set up working groups and draft measures aimed at ousting Assad, who was targeted by new international sanctions on Friday.

Turkish planes carried out two raids in Iraq on Friday and bombarded 85 Kurdish rebel targets, the army announced Saturday, without giving any possible casualty figures.

Turkey resumed its bombing of positions held by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the Iraq mountains after a break of more than a year following an attack on Wednesday in southeast Turkey in which nine members of the Turkish security forces were killed.

Turkey believes it is too soon to call for Syrian President Bashar al-Assad to step down, a government official told Agence France Presse on Friday.

"We are not there yet," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan arrived in Mogadishu Friday for the first visit by a major leader in nearly two decades to witness the devastation wrought by a famine in the Somali capital.

Somalia is the country worst affected in the Horn of Africa by a prolonged drought that has been officially declared a famine by the United Nations in five regions in the country, including Mogadishu itself.

Turkey's military on Thursday confirmed its warplanes has pounded Kurdish rebel targets during cross-border raids into northern Iraq and vowed to continue the "actions" until the guerrilla group is "rendered ineffective."

A military statement said the jets hit 60 suspected rebel targets on the mountainous region near the border with Turkey late Wednesday as well as targets on Mt Qandil, along the Iraqi-Iranian border, where the leaders of the rebel group Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, are believed to be hiding.

Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman accused Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Thursday of trying to "undermine Israel's legitimacy" by demanding an apology for the 2010 deadly flotilla raid.

"The Turkish prime minister wants to undermine the legitimacy of the state of Israel by demanding an apology that would constitute an admission of guilt and undermine our right to self-defense against attacks from Gaza," he told public radio.

The separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party claimed responsibility for an ambush on Wednesday in which Ankara said eight Turkish soldiers were killed.

"Our forces have carried out an ambush against the Turkish army ... on the border," Doldar Hammo, a spokesman for the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels which have bases in northern Iraq, told Agence France Presse.