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Soldier killed, teenagers injured in mine blasts in southeast Turkey

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, April 11, 2006 (AFP) - A Turkish soldier was killed in a landmine blast blamed on Kurdish rebels in the southeast of the country while six teenage boys were injured in another landmine explosion, security officials said Tuesday.

The first explosion occurred late Monday on a road near the town of Silvan, 80 kilometers (50 miles) east of Diyarbakir, the central city of Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast.

The mine was activated by suspected militants from the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), killing one soldier and injuring another inside the vehicle transporting garbage to a nearby dump, the officials said, asking not to be named.

In the second explosion, six boys, aged between 12 and 14, were wounded when they stepped on a landmine while walking near their homes on the outskirts of Sirnak city, close to the border with Syria and Iraq, local officials said.

One of the boys was in a serious condition.

It was not clear who had planted the mine, but initial suspicions fell on the PKK, they added.

Landmine attacks have become a hallmark of PKK violence since the group called off a five-year unilateral ceasefire in June 2004.

The attacks were the latest episode in almost daily bloodshed in the region over the past few weeks that has seen deadly Kurdish riots in urban areas and clashes between the army and the PKK in the countryside.

The conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984, when the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara, the European Union and the United States, took up arms for self-rule in the southeast.