oRTouCH
Active member
Monday, October 1, 2007
ANKARA - AFP
Thirteen people died and two were injured in the southeast when members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) sprayed a bus with machine gun fire in the bloodiest attack in years, officials said Sunday.
Saturday's attack came a day after Turkey and Iraq signed an agreement to crack down on the PKK based in northern Iraq and the killing of a Kurdish separatist in the east.
"Separatists and terrorists from the PKK used machine gun fire on a minibus carrying 14 people, killing 12 people including seven Village Guard militiamen," local governor Selahattin Aparı said Sunday on the NTV television channel. The incident occurred near the town of Beytüssebab in Şırnak province not far from the Iraqi border.
Village Guards are paramilitary units armed by Ankara to protect villages in the southeast of the country from attacks by the PKK, whose 23-year-old war for independence has claimed more than 37,000 lives.
The victims also included a local village chieftain and his four sons who were all members of the Village Guards.
Two others injured in the attack were in hospital in serious condition, officials said, as security forces launched a manhunt for the attackers.
The mass-circulation Hürriyet newspaper Sunday blasted the attack while taking a swipe at the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which brands the PKK an organisation of "youth of the mountains."
"Here are the assassins that you call the youth of the mountains," the newspaper sneered.
The attack is the worst in years and is a throwback to incidents of a similar scale staged at the start of the insurgency more than two decades ago.
On Friday, Ankara and Baghdad inked a landmark pact to combat the PKK based in northern Iraq but Turkey failed to secure a right for cross-border military operations.
Turkey says the separatist PKK enjoys free movement in northern Iraq, where it has long taken refuge, and obtains weapons and explosives there for attacks across the border.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and much of the international community. Ankara says the PKK is backed by Iraqi Kurds, who have been Washington's ally in the campaign against Saddam Hussein.
The deal envisages judicial cooperation against terrorist groups as well as the capture of their members and their prosecution or extradition. Turkish and Iraqi officials will also meet every six months to assess progress.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Turkey carried out incursions into northern Iraq, but with the consent of the Iraqi Kurds.
Their relations however have nosedived since then amid Turkish suspicions that Iraqi Kurds are seeking to form their own state, emboldening the PKK's separatist campaign. On Friday, Turkish forces also gunned down a PKK member in the mountainous region of Tunceli, a day after three soldiers were injured in a landmine blast in the restive frontier region bordering Iraq.
God damns terror!
ANKARA - AFP
Thirteen people died and two were injured in the southeast when members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) sprayed a bus with machine gun fire in the bloodiest attack in years, officials said Sunday.
Saturday's attack came a day after Turkey and Iraq signed an agreement to crack down on the PKK based in northern Iraq and the killing of a Kurdish separatist in the east.
"Separatists and terrorists from the PKK used machine gun fire on a minibus carrying 14 people, killing 12 people including seven Village Guard militiamen," local governor Selahattin Aparı said Sunday on the NTV television channel. The incident occurred near the town of Beytüssebab in Şırnak province not far from the Iraqi border.
Village Guards are paramilitary units armed by Ankara to protect villages in the southeast of the country from attacks by the PKK, whose 23-year-old war for independence has claimed more than 37,000 lives.
The victims also included a local village chieftain and his four sons who were all members of the Village Guards.
Two others injured in the attack were in hospital in serious condition, officials said, as security forces launched a manhunt for the attackers.
The mass-circulation Hürriyet newspaper Sunday blasted the attack while taking a swipe at the pro-Kurdish Democratic Society Party (DTP), which brands the PKK an organisation of "youth of the mountains."
"Here are the assassins that you call the youth of the mountains," the newspaper sneered.
The attack is the worst in years and is a throwback to incidents of a similar scale staged at the start of the insurgency more than two decades ago.
On Friday, Ankara and Baghdad inked a landmark pact to combat the PKK based in northern Iraq but Turkey failed to secure a right for cross-border military operations.
Turkey says the separatist PKK enjoys free movement in northern Iraq, where it has long taken refuge, and obtains weapons and explosives there for attacks across the border.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and much of the international community. Ankara says the PKK is backed by Iraqi Kurds, who have been Washington's ally in the campaign against Saddam Hussein.
The deal envisages judicial cooperation against terrorist groups as well as the capture of their members and their prosecution or extradition. Turkish and Iraqi officials will also meet every six months to assess progress.
Prior to the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003, Turkey carried out incursions into northern Iraq, but with the consent of the Iraqi Kurds.
Their relations however have nosedived since then amid Turkish suspicions that Iraqi Kurds are seeking to form their own state, emboldening the PKK's separatist campaign. On Friday, Turkish forces also gunned down a PKK member in the mountainous region of Tunceli, a day after three soldiers were injured in a landmine blast in the restive frontier region bordering Iraq.
God damns terror!
