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Belgium police launch raid on Turkish PKK rebel suspects

BRUSSELS, April 4, 2008 (AFP) - Belgian police on Friday arrested 29 women among the Kurdish community suspected of links to the PKK rebel group in Turkey during coordinated nationwide raids, the federal prosecutor's office said.

The women were arrested in the eastern town of Verviers on suspicion of "taking part in PKK terrorist activities", the federal prosecutor said in a statement.

The Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), engaged in an armed struggle for self-rule in southeast Turkey, is on the European Union's terror list.

Other raids were carried out simultaneously early Friday in the capital Brussels and the eastern town of Liege.

These were areas where "there were indications that people involved in the activities of this organisation were living or would meet and where one might find material proof linked to this organisation," the statement said. It added that computers and "various documents" had been seized in the raids.

The simultaneous action was carried out without incident by federal and local police on the instruction of a Brussels judge specialised in terrorism cases, the prosecutor said.

A police source confirmed the operation, without giving details of any arrests.

There was no word of the nature of the activities the women were suspected of being involved in.

Kurdish sources said only that a number of women were questioned by police.

RTL-tvi television, citing unnamed sources, said police searched a Kurdish cultural centre in Verviers.

It added that 40 women were questioned amid suspicions that they had taken part in PKK training at covert camps in Belgium.