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Tunceli, Turkey: Nine Turkish soldiers including a lieutenant colonel were killed and two injured on Monday after an improvised explosive device planted by separatist guerrillas destroyed their vehicle, military sources said.
After what was one of the biggest attacks on the military this year, special forces troops backed by helicopters set about scouring the area for the attackers, the sources said.
Turkish media had earlier described the attack - reported on a country road near a bridge in Kemah district in Turkey's eastern Erzincan province - as a landmine incident but the sources said a remote-controlled bomb was to blame.
Scene of frequent clashes
Several F-16 fighter jets took off in the main southeastern city of Diyarbakir after the ambush but their destination was unclear.
"This attack, which once again shows the ugly face of terrorism, demonstrates plainly how removed the terrorists are from any human values," President Abdullah Gul said in a statement.
Erzincan province rarely witnesses separatist conflict but neighbouring Tunceli is the scene of frequent clashes between Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels and Turkish armed forces.
The PKK claimed responsibility for an explosion last week in Erzincan which damaged the key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline and warned of more attacks on economic targets in Turkey.
However military and local official sources have said the pipeline blast and subsequent fire were due to a technical fault and not sabotage. The pipeline fire was put out yesterday, according to a senior source at oil company BP.
Terror organisation
The PKK, regarded as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms against Turkey in 1984 with the aim of establishing a Kurdish homeland in the southeast of the country.
Some 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
In the southern Turkish province of Hatay, which borders Syria, police shot an unidentified man early last day after a clash outside a special forces police station.
State-run Anatolian news agency said some 12 kg of plastic explosives, complete with a remote control detonator, were found in a satchel which the dead man had placed a few metres from the station's entrance.
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