Ankara - One soldier was killed and two injured on Tuesday in a car bomb attack on a security base in eastern Turkey, the Anadolu news agency reported. Anadolu quoted unnamed sources as saying a civilian car carrying bread was driven to the entrance of a gendarme post in the village of Kocakoc where it stopped and a bomb was detonated by remote control. It was not clear what happened to the driver.
One gendarme, military police responsible for security in rural areas, was killed instantly. The two wounded were flown to a nearby military hospital.
The car bomb came on the same day as reports that five Kurdish rebels had been killed in fighting in the south-eastern province of Sirnak in and around Mount Kato.
Anadolu reported that Turkish soldiers first called on the Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) rebels to surrender and were then fired upon.
Backed by helicopter gunships, Turkish soldiers were fighting around 40 rebels believed to be on or around Mount Kato who were possibly trying to escape to bases in northern Iraq before the onset of winter, Anadolu reported. In the past week 15 rebels have been killed in the operation.
Another soldier was also killed in a separate attack also in Sirnak, Anadolu reported.
More than 32,000 people, mainly Kurdish civilians, have been killed since the early 1980s when the PKK launched its fight for independence or autonomy for the mainly Kurdish-populated south-east.
The PKK is considered a terrorist group by both the United States and the European Union.
