World Scene

TURKEY

Military attacks rebel Kurds in Iraq

ISTANBUL — Turkey’s military said yesterday it launched overnight air and artillery attacks against Kurdish separatist rebels in northern Iraq after an insurgent strike on a military base.

The raids in northern Iraq targeted members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) who had escaped into Iraq from Turkey after attacking a police station Friday night with a force of between 150 and 200 rebels.

Two soldiers were killed in the initial PKK attack and four died later in ensuing clashes with the separatists.

The violence is part of a wider military operation, backed by attack helicopters, tanks and artillery, against the PKK in restive and mountainous southeast Turkey.

Sporadic fighting occurred yesterday along the Iraqi border of Hakkari province, military sources told Reuters news agency, adding that 20,000 troops had been deployed along the Turkish-Iraqi border with large convoys delivering arms and supplies.

Nearly 100,000 troops have been stationed in the country’s southeast to fight against the PKK.

AFGHANISTAN

Taliban prisoners on hunger strike

KABUL — About 300 Taliban suspects have been on a hunger strike in Afghanistan’s southern Kandahar prison for a week demanding fair trials, rights groups and local lawmakers said yesterday.

The prisoners, most of them captured in connection with a Taliban-led insurgency, stopped eating a week ago yesterday in protest at the handling of their trials by local authorities, one lawmaker said.

“About 300 prisoners have been on a hunger strike [for] the past one week. About 20 of them have sewn their lips,” said Ahmad Wali Karzai, head of the Kandahar provincial council.

It was not independently confirmed they had sewn their lips.

The Afghanistan Independent Human Rights Commission in Kandahar confirmed the hunger strike and called on authorities to deal with the issue.

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