The suspects of Monday's carnage in the small village of Bilge in Mardin province, near the Syrian border, included a 14-year-old, provincial governor Hasan Duruer told the Anatolia national news agency.

He did not say what charges had been brought against them, but underlined that they had used their right to remain silent during their interrogation.

Security forces were questioning two other suspects, Anatolia reported, without citing sources.

Authorities and locals had said Tuesday that the suspects hailed from the same village and were related to some of the victims.

Interior Minister Besir Atalay said the accused included members of so-called "village guards", a militia force of local Kurds armed and paid by the government to help fight Kurdish rebels.

"There are village guards both among the victims and the attackers," he said in televised remarks to reporters in Ankara.

"The weapons used (in the attack) were those given to village guards. This is important. We are evaluating the issue," he added.

Although village guards have proved successful in helping the army against the rebels, they have also been implicated in serious crimes such as drug smuggling, rape, kidnappings and murder.

Human rights officials have long called for the dissolution of the 70,000-strong force set up in 1985, arguing that they use their status to settle family scores and take over land.

Successive governments have talked of gradually dismantling the force, but have failed to act. With their fire power and strong feudal ties representing a substantial number of votes, they are a force to be reckoned with.

In Monday's attack, masked assailants stormed into the village square from different directions and opened fire on the crowd just after a Muslim preacher had completed the wedding ceremony, witnesses told AFP.

The assailants then raided several houses, continuing to shoot, before escaping in the dark amid a sandstorm, they said.

The bride, the groom, his parents and four-year-old sister as well as the village's imam were all killed, authorities and witnesses said.

Six children and 15 other women, three of them pregnant, were among the dead. Several survivors told Turkish newspapers that they had hidden under dead bodies until the assailants left.

Anatolia quoted an official from the local social services as saying that some 70 children had lost one or both parents in the attack.

The Turkish Red Crescent said it was sending a team of eight psychologists to provide counselling to the survivors.

Residents in Bilge, with a population of some 300, were on Wednesday still reeling from the carnage. Women and children wept and prayed at the graves of victims dug out in rows a day before.

Security forces beefed up measures around the houses of the accused to prevent possible reprisals against their families, but several of them had already left the village in fear of their lives, Anatolia said.

"Even though we are innocent, they (the villagers) are accusing us. If the gendarmes were not there, they would kill us. We are not safe, we have to leave," said one of their number, Ahmet Celebi, Anatolia reported.

Atalay said security forces had shed light on the attack, but refused to give details.

"There was a succession of events over the years leading to the attack. There was one important reason that accelerated the whole process," he said, refusing to elaborate.

Earlier Wednesday, the minister had said that a relative of some of the victims had spoken of "a long-running grudge and jealousy between the two sides."

The local governor ruled out earlier reports of a vendetta, or blood feud, but spoke of "enmity, jealousy and clashing interests" between the two sides.

Villagers have suggested an argument over land turned, an unpaid debt and objections to the marriage as possible motives.

Blood feuds are frequent in Turkey's Kurdish-populated regions, where feudal traditions are strong, illiteracy is high and many see the gun as a legitimate tool to settle scores.