Two Turk Soldiers Dead in Kurdish Attack on Convoy

Kurdish guerrillas ambushed a convoy of vehicles carrying a provincial governor on Tuesday killing two soldiers in a 10-minute firefight in the troubled southeast of Turkey which borders Iraq, officials said. Another Turkish soldier was injured in the attack launched by around 10 gunmen from dense forest surrounding a narrow road some 22 miles east of the town of Tunceli, according to a Reuters reporter traveling in the convoy. Turkey has launched several operations in recent weeks to track down hundreds of Kurdish militants it says are returning from the mountains of northern Iraq to Turkey after the U.S.-led war that toppled Saddam Hussein earlier this year. Many vehicles were strafed with heavy machinegun fire, which ricocheted off the tarmac in front of the 13-vehicle convoy. Blood and broken glass were scattered over the mountain road after the firefight that ended when the guerrillas fled. Tunceli governor Ali Cafer Akyuz, the target of the attack, escaped unharmed, officials said. Some 5,000 soldiers with air support were mobilized in the hunt for the assailants, none of whom were reported killed or injured during the clash near Tunceli which is around 300 km (190 miles) from Iraq. Full Story