Mainstream warnews from Turkish Kurdistan

[ozgurluk at xs4all.nl]

   DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Nov 17 (AFP) - Four people were injured and  
person died in a Kurdish rebel suicide attack on a police station in 
southeastern Turkey on Tuesday, authorities in the regional capital 
Diyarbakir said. 
   A woman, about 30 years of age and thought to be a member of the  
Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), triggered an explosive device 
outside the station in Yuksekova near the Iranian border. 
   She was killed in the explosion.  
   Two civilians and two members of the paramilitary police were  
injured. 
   It was the first such attack since PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan  
was arrested in Rome last week. 
   Three Kurdish prisoners meanwhile attempted to set themselves  
alight in a prison in Batman, also in the southeast of Turkey. 
   The prisoners doused themselves with cologne and set the alcohol  
alight, to protest Ocalan's arrest. Prison guards put out the 
flames, but the men had to be hospitalised with serious burns, 
prison officials said. 
   More than 600 Kurdish prisoners in Turkish jails on Monday began  
a hungerstrike in solidarity with the PKK leader. 
   Security has been stepped up in Turkish towns and in the  
predominantly Kurdish southeast of the country since the arrest, 
against expected PKK attacks. 
   Leave of absence was cancelled for troops deployed in the region  
and reinforcements were sent to the area. 
   Special security precautions were also taken in the prisons,  
authorities said. 
   Turkey has requested Ocalan's extradition to face charges of  
treason, but the PKK leader has applied for political asylum in 
Italy. 
   Ocalan is held responsible by Turkey for more than 30,000 deaths  
in his organization's armed struggle for Kurdish autonomy in the 
Anatolia region. 
  	   	

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