BAGHDAD — Iraqi leaders criticized Turkey on Monday for bombing Kurdish militants in northern Iraq with airstrikes that they said had left at least one woman dead.

The Turkish attacks in Dohuk Province on Sunday — involving dozens of warplanes and artillery — were the largest known cross-border attack since 2003. They occurred with at least tacit approval from American officials.

The Iraqi government, however, said it had not been consulted or informed about the attacks.

Massoud Barzani, leader of the autonomous Kurdish region in the north, condemned the assaults as a violation of Iraqi sovereignty that had undermined months of diplomacy. “These attacks hinder the political efforts exerted to find a peaceful solution based on mutual respect,” he said in a statement.

At a news conference in Najaf, he went further, declaring that “the Americans are responsible because the Iraqi sky is under their full control.”

The bombing raids focused on an area where some commanders for the Kurdish militant group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known by its Kurdish initials, P.K.K., were believed to have been hiding.

The Turkish military said on its Web site that it had conducted “casualty and damage analysis” of the areas it hit in the airstrikes, and it concluded that “all intended targets have been successfully hit.” Reports in the Turkish news media said the United States had detected movement by the Kurdish militants and, suspecting a meeting of the group, had given the information to Turkey.

One Turkish official said the attack would help to persuade the militants to consider a surrender. “It has international backing,” the official said. “We hit specific targets. We’ll do it again if we have to.”

Turkey, a NATO member, has thousands of troops at the Iraqi border and was threatening a military operation into northern Iraq. But it appears to be using a more limited offensive, as the United States requested.

The assault was the second set of strikes against the Kurdish militant group since Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey met with President Bush in Washington last month. In the first strikes, on Dec. 1, artillery was fired from Turkish territory.

Elsewhere in Iraq, more than 20 people were killed or found dead in and around Baquba, the largest city in Diyala Province. The police said a suicide motorcycle bomber had killed at least seven people and wounded 24 in one of the city’s markets. Six were killed in two separate shootings. Two died from roadside bombs, and the authorities found six bodies in two locations on the city’s western outskirts.

Farther north near the Mosul dam, a truck bomb severely damaged a bridge over the Tigris River, killing at least one member of the Iraqi security forces.

Meanwhile, Osama bin Laden’s lieutenant in the Qaeda terrorist network, Ayman al-Zawahri, warned of “traitors” among insurgents in Iraq. In a video posted Monday on the Web, he called for Iraqi Sunni Arabs to purge those who help the Americans.

Mr. Zawahri’s comments were aimed at undermining the Iraqi “awakening councils,” groups of Iraqi Sunni tribesmen that the United States military has backed to help fight Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia — the homegrown Sunni Arab extremist group that American intelligence agencies have concluded is foreign-led.

Some Sunni insurgent groups have fought alongside American forces. The United States military has promoted the councils as a major factor in reducing violence.

In central Baghdad, a roadside bomb killed two people in a minibus and wounded seven others, police and hospital officials said.

Reporting was contributed by Balen Y. Younis and Ahmad Sadam from Baghdad, Sabrina Tavernise from Istanbul, and Iraqi employees of The New York Times from Najaf and Mosul.

Copyright 2007 The New York Times Company