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Kurdish rebels kill 4, wound 1 in ambush
of Turkish soldiers
6.6.2005
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ANKARA, Turkey -- Kurdish rebels ambushed a
Turkish commando unit over the weekend, killing four
soldiers and wounding one in southeastern Turkey as
the rebel command threatened to escalate violence
across the country, news reports said yesterday.
Later yesterday, police in Istanbul said they had
captured seven Kurdish rebels planning bomb attacks
in the city, including the commander of a rebel
special forces unit. Police said the rebels were
collecting intelligence on possible targets but had
not yet brought the explosives to Istanbul.
In the attack in southeastern Turkey, rebels opened
fire overnight Saturday on a small unit of Turkish
commandos patrolling the rugged area near the
village of Cicekli in Tunceli province. Four
soldiers were killed, while one person was wounded,
local officials said. The troops pursued the
guerrillas from the air with warplanes and attack
helicopters, the Anatolia news agency said.
The attack coincided with a warning from the rebel
command to escalate the fight if the army maintained
its military drive, the pro-Kurdish Ozgur Gundem
newspaper reported yesterday.
''These [military] operations lead the violence to
increase and expand to a wider area. This will
inevitably not only affect the region but Turkey
more strongly," the newspaper quoted rebel commander
Bahoz Erdal as saying.
The increasing violence could threaten the economy
of Turkey, which says it has spent about $100
billion fighting the rebels since 1984. It also
could make it harder for the government, under
pressure from the European Union, to improve the
cultural rights and freedoms of its restive Kurdish
population.
Rebels of the Kurdistan Workers Party declared a
unilateral cease-fire in 1999 after the capture of
their leader, Abdullah Ocalan. The rebels broke the
truce last year, saying the Turkish government had
not responded in kind.
Turkey refuses to negotiate with the rebels, whom it
calls terrorists. The rebel group also is considered
a terrorist organization by the United States and
the EU. Turkey is demanding that US and Iraqi
officials crack down on Turkish Kurdish rebels who,
for more than a decade, have taken advantage of
instability in Iraq to run their rebellion from
hideouts in predominantly Kurdish northern Iraq.
More than 37,000 people have died in the conflict
since 1984.
AP
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