Aug 11, 2008
TUNCELI, Turkey (Reuters) - Nine Turkish soldiers including a lieutenant colonel were killed on Monday when their vehicle was struck by an improvised explosive device planted by separatist guerrillas, military sources told Reuters.
After what was one of the biggest attacks on the military this year, special forces troops backed by Cobra helicopters searched the area for the rebels behind it, the sources said.
In addition to the nine killed, two soldiers were also wounded in the military vehicle attack on a country road near a bridge in Kemah district in Turkey's eastern Erzincan province.
The bomb was detonated by remote control, the sources said. Earlier Turkish media had described the device as a landmine. Erzincan province rarely witnesses separatist conflict but neighboring Tunceli is the scene of frequent clashes between Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels and Turkish armed forces.
The PKK, regarded as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European Union, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of establishing a Kurdish homeland in the southeast of the country. Some 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
The western media never fails; they always report the Turks genocide of the Kurds as if it is equal on both sides. Most of those dead are Kurds. Which makes Israel's presence there even more confounding.
In the southern Turkish province of Hatay, which borders Syria, police shot an unidentified man early Monday after a clash outside a special forces police station.
State-run Anatolian news agency said some 12 kg (26 lb) of plastic explosives, equipped with a remote control detonator, were found in a sports bag which the dead man had placed a few meters away from the station's entrance. --more--"
Gee, that last bit was strange. Reeks of Mossad and Israel, actually; if it were 'terrorists" the jewsmedia would be blaring with it!!
