The militants, members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), were killed in a mountainous area in Sirnak province near the Iraqi border on Saturday morning, a statement said.

The clashes followed the killing of five village guards, or members of a government-armed Kurdish militia supporting the army against the rebels the previous night, it said.

In a separate incident Saturday, security forces found a 15-kilogramme (33-pound) bomb, in a mountainous region in Bingol province to the northwest, the army said.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed more than 37,000 lives.

The Turkish army has stepped up it crackdown against the group since December, intensifying operations in the southeast and conducting air raids on PKK camps in neighbouring northern Iraq, where the rebels take refuge.