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25 octobre 2004

ANKARA, (Xinhuanet) — Two Turkish soldiers were killed when their military vehicle hit a landmine in southeastern Turkey Sunday, the Anatolia News Agency reported.

Sources concerned were quoted as saying that the landmine planted by terrorists in Dicle town of Diyarbakir province killed two soldiers and wounded four others.

The sources added that efforts to capture the perpetrators who planted the mine were underway.

On Saturday, militants of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party(PKK) sabotaged a Turkish Oil Corp. (TPAO) pipeline in the nearby town of Batman.

Anatolia quoted TPAO officials as saying that fire broke out in the pipeline and caused about 6,000 barrels of oil to spread out from the pipeline due to the explosion.

Firefighters extinguished the fire and repairing work was underway.

Local officials blamed the PKK rebels for both attacks, Anatolia said.

The PKK rebels sabotaged pipelines in the region before. The PKK, also known as KADEK or Kongra-Gel, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30,000 lives.

Though fighting fell off sharply with the capture of PKK commander Abdullah Ocalan in 1999, violence between the guerrillas and Turkish security forces has been on the rise since the rebels called off a six-year unilateral truce in June.