12 Turkish Troops, 23 Kurdish Rebels Killed Near Iraq Border

[Woodmonkey]

12 Turkish Troops, 23 Kurdish Rebels Killed Near Iraq Border

SIRNAK, Turkey —
Kurdish rebels ambushed Turkish soldiers near the Iraq border on Sunday, killing 12 troops and increasing pressure on the government to attack guerrilla camps in Iraq. A Turkish military said it killed 23 rebels in a counteroffensive and shelled 63 suspected rebel targets.

The pro-Kurdish Firat news agency, based in Belgium, later said rebels also took several Turkish soldiers hostage.

Separately, 14 people were injured when a bomb exploded as a minibus passed near the area where the soldiers were killed, CNN-Turk said.

"Our anger, our hatred is great," Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on national television. He said the government would hold an emergency meeting later Sunday and would take "an approach that is calm, far from agitation and based on common sense."

The Source