Roadside bomb kills 9 Turkish soldiers

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(Agencies)
Updated: 2009-04-29 17:33

ANKARA, Turkey -- Suspected Kurdish rebels detonated a roadside bomb that killed nine soldiers Wednesday in a US-made armored personnel carrier in southeastern Turkey, the Turkish military said.

The bomb exploded near the town of Lice in Diyarbakir province in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast, military chief Gen. Ilker Basbug said. The targeted vehicle and a tank were securing the area ahead of a larger military convoy.

"Our guess at the moment is that it was a homemade bomb of very powerful explosives," Basbug told reporters. "Most probably, it was remote-controlled or detonated by cable."

Basbug did not blame the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, by name, but said the attack had made the military more determined than ever to fight terrorism.

Turkish officials routinely refer to the PKK, which says it seeks more rights for Turkey's Kurds, as terrorists. The West also labels the organization as terrorist.

The attack was the deadliest assault by suspected Kurdish rebels this year. The guerrillas stage hit-and-run attacks on Turkish targets, often operating from hideouts in northern Iraq.

The PKK has been fighting for self-rule in Turkey's southeast since 1984 in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people, but it is less powerful than it was in the 1990s. Its leader, Abdullah Ocalan, was captured in 1999 and is serving a life sentence on a prison island.

Turkey has launched repeated aerial attacks against suspected rebel targets in northern Iraq, and staged a ground offensive across the border last year. The government has taken some steps to grant more cultural rights to Kurds, acknowledging that military action alone cannot resolve the situation.