ANKARA, July 16: Kurdish guerillas, staging attacks from northern Iraq, ambushed and killed seven soldiers and one village guard inside Turkey, authorities announced on Sunday.

The ambush on Saturday near Eruh, a town in Siirt province, increased the number of Turkish soldiers killed in action by the autonomy-seeking guerillas to 12 since Thursday, increasing pressure on the government to consider new security measures against the guerillas.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday expressed outrage at the killings, signalling that Turkey could step up its fight against the outlawed Kurdish guerillas.

Turkey’s High Anti-Terrorism Council — gathering high military, civilian, police and intelligence officials — held an emergency meeting on Sunday to discuss possible new measures against guerillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, who have escalated their violence lately.

The guerillas also recently gunned down a policeman and two Turkish noncommissioned officers in separate attacks in the southeast.

Turkish troops, reinforced by helicopter gunships, were pursuing the guerillas in the rugged region near the town of Eruh.

US-made Cobra attack helicopters pounded suspected rebel hideouts, while Sikorsky helicopters ferried Turkish commandos to strategic points along the Iraqi border in order to surround the guerillas, private Dogan news agency said.

Some tanks and armoured personnel carriers also were dispatched to the scene, Dogan said.

In other violence on Sunday, troops killed one Kurdish rebel in a clash in Bingol province, the state-run Anatolia news agency reported.

The rebels operate in small bands in the country’s southeast and use their bases in neighbouring Iraq as a staging ground for attacks inside Turkey.

Turkey has long urged the United States and Iraq to crack down on rebel bases in northern Iraq, but US commanders, struggling to battle Iraqi guerillas elsewhere, have been reticent to fight the Kurdish rebels.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the EU.

Erdogan said the PKK was ‘mercilessly martyring the sons of the country’, in reference to the latest killings of Turkish soldiers.

The clash in Siirt left seven soldiers and one pro-government village guard dead on Saturday while five soldiers were killed on Thursday when their vehicle hit a landmine, believed to be planted by Kurdish guerillas, in Bingol province.

“Until now, we’ve always been dealing with this with patience. We’ve always wanted to solve this within democratic lines,” Erdogan said.

“Tonight, eight of our children were martyred. They had martyred five of our children in Bingol, too. From now on, these are unbearable.”

The PKK called a unilateral cease-fire after the capture of its leader Abdullah Ocalan in 1999, but resumed fighting in 2004 because Turkey still labelled the group a terrorist organisation and refused to talk to it.

Turkey, whose fight against the guerillas has stained the country’s human rights record, has been trying to improve treatment of its Kurds under pressure from the European Union and has granted more cultural rights, such as the right to broadcast in the once-banned Kurdish language.

Erdogan hinted that a security meeting and subsequent cabinet meeting on Monday could lead to new measures in the fight against Kurdish guerillas.

“Let me say that the meeting we will hold tomorrow morning and the following cabinet meeting could lead to many things,” Erdogan said, without elaborating.

“We will never be daunted in our fight against terrorism. We will continue this fight until the very end.”

Turkey has launched several incursions into northern Iraq in the past, but has refrained from staging any cross-border offensive in order not to worsen the security situation in Iraq.

However, Turkey has been keeping some 2,000 troops, backed by tanks, inside Iraq to monitor the rebel activities there.—AP