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Four policemen wounded in Kurdish rebel attack in Turkey

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, June 9, 2006 (AFP) - Four police officers were wounded when separatist Kurdish rebels opened fire on the residence of a local government official in southeast Turkey, local security sources said Friday.

The attack took place late Thursday in the town of Kozluk in Batman province.

The policemen, who were on duty around the residence of the town's governor, sustained injuries to their hands and feet. None of them was in a life-threatening condition, the sources said.

Governor Mustafa Balli was out of town at the time of the attack for which officials blamed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Fighting between the army and PKK rebels has markedly intensified this year, and Kurdish militants have claimed responsibility for a series of bomb attacks in urban centers.

More than 37,000 people have been killed since 1984 when the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, took up arms for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast.