Militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) staged their ambush after the wedding ceremony in a rural area in Beytussebab town in Sirnak province, near the Iraqi border, on Wednesday evening, the sources said.

The rebels tried to kidnap five people, including three village-guards, locals armed by the government to help the army's fight against the PKK. One militiaman managed to escape, while the rest were abducted, sources said.

In August the PKK captured a Turkish soldier and a local official in Diyarbakir province, the regional capital of the mainly Kurdish southeast. In July they abducted two soldiers and a health worker near Diyarbakir.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.