Kurdish Rebels Claim to Have Taken Eight Hostages During Attack on Turkish Soldiers

Turkey has confirmed that eight troops are still missing following the ambush on the country’s border with northern Iraq which brought the area to the brink of war.

“Despite all search efforts, no contact has been established with eight missing personnel since shortly after the armed attack on the military unit,” a military spokesman said.

Earlier the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency released the names of seven people it said were Turkish soldiers abducted by separatist fighters in Sunday’s ambush. It said an eighth soldier was also taken captive but did not release his name.

The rebel attack on Sunday came four days after Turkey’s parliament authorised the deployment of troops across the border in Iraq, amid growing anger in Turkey at perceived US and Iraqi failure to live up to pledges to crack down on the Kurdish rebel group PKK.

It raised the death toll of soldiers in PKK attacks in the past two weeks to around 30.

Tens of thousands of Turkish troops are deployed in the border area and a military spokesman said today that 34 PKK members had been killed in retaliatory raids.

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