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ANKARA, Aug 5 (AFP) - 10h52 - Five Turkish
paramilitary troops were killed Friday when a
powerful bomb, believed to have been planted by the
outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), exploded
near a military building in the southeastern
province of Hakkari, local officials said.
The blast in the province's Semdinli town, which
lies close to both Iran and Iraq, also slightly
injured one soldier, the provincial governor's
office said in a statement faxed to AFP.
Earlier reports had put the number of the injured at
seven.
The explosives went off at 12:40 am (2140 GMT) on a
busy street between the security wall surrounding
the local gendarmerie headquarters and the guest
house used by local personnel in the town, the
statement said.
It added that the bomb was believed to have been set
off either on a timer or by remote control.
Security forces had begun a sweep of the area to
catch the perpetrators, while local civilian and
military officials immediately convened a security
meeting to assess the situation.
Local officials were not immediately available for
comment.
Hakkari province is a hotbed of activity by PKK
rebels who have recently stepped up their armed
campaign against the government in the mainly
Kurdish southeast of the country after calling off a
five-year unilateral truce.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 for self-rule, with the
conflict claiming some 37,000 lives, most of them
Kurdish rebels.
The group, listed by the United States and the
European Union as a terrorist organisation,
announced a unilateral truce in 1999 to seek a
peaceful resolution to the conflict, but called it
off last year on the grounds that Ankara's efforts
to expand Kurdish freedoms were insufficient.
Since then, there has been a sharp increase in
clashes in the southeast and the rebels have been
blamed for a number of bomb attacks in tourist
resorts in western Turkey.
Police hold the PKK responsible for the bombing of a
bus in the seaside resort of Kusadasi on July 16,
which killed five people, among them a British woman
and an Irish teenager.
A little known Kurdish group calling itself the
Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), which police say is
a cover for PKK attacks on civilians, claimed
responsibility for a bomb attack in another Aegean
resort, Cesme, which left 20 people injured.
AFP
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