Kurdish rebels kill 12 in ambush

[Tsontos]

Kurdish rebels kill 12 in Turkey ambush

Kurdish rebels killed 12 people in a minibus carrying pro-government village guards and civilians in south-eastern Turkey.

Kurdish rebels killed 12 people in a minibus carrying pro-government village guards and civilians in south-eastern Turkey, a local official said.

The rebels attacked the minibus in Sirnak province near the border with Iraq with machineguns, killing seven village guards and five civilians, governor Selahattin Apari said. Two others were injured, but it was not clear if they were village guards or civilians.

The ambush by autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels came a day after Turkey clinched a counter-terrorism pact with Iraq, where the rebels have bases.

Despite Ankara's insistence, the Iraqi side refused to allow Turkey to send its troops across the border to chase the Kurdish rebels.

Turkey has pondered a cross-border military operation to root out the members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, holed up in the mountainous areas of northern Iraq. However, the United States - a close ally of Ankara - objected to such a move, fearing it could destabilise the relatively calm part of the war-torn country.

Kurdish lawmakers in Iraq were also opposed to a possible military move by Turkey across the border.

The PKK is labelled a terrorist organisation by the US and the European Union. The group has been fighting the government forces since 1984 for autonomy, and tens of thousands have been killed in the fighting.

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[nsminc]

I know that these village guards aren't very popular among the Kurds.