At least 42 Kurd rebels and a Turkish soldier have been killed over three days of combat in a town in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast, local security sources said Friday.

The clashes took place near the town of Semdinli, which lies close to the border with both Iraq and Iran and has seen a surge in fighting between the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and Turkey’s army since July, the sources said.

On Thursday, a soldier was killed in clashes that erupted between Turkish security forces and members of the PKK in Semdinli.

The Turkish army responded with air strikes on PKK members in the town, killing 13 rebels, the sources said.

The fighting came after a car bomb targeting a police vehicle exploded in the town on Sunday, killing an 11-year old child and wounding 18 other people in an attack blamed on Kurdish rebels.

Meanwhile, Turkish ground forces had been carrying out cross-border operations targeting Kurdish militants in northern Iraq throughout the week.

Turkey’s parliament last month extended by a year a mandate allowing the government to send troops into northern Iraq in pursuit of PKK fighters, despite objections from Baghdad.

The mandate was first passed in 2007 and has been extended every year since, permitting the army to enter Iraq to strike the PKK, which is designated a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and the European Union.

The region is the theatre of a 28-year-old conflict between Turkish forces and PKK fighters. About 45,000 people have been killed since the party took up arms for autonomy in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984.