Rebels from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) opened fire on soldiers on patrol near Semdinli, in southeastern Hakkari province, in an area close to the border with Iraq, killing two of them.

Two others were wounded in the attack.

In Pulumur, Tunceli province, some 650 kilometers (400 miles) northwest of Hakkari, rebels set off a landmine by remote control as an armoured minibus carrying the children of local soldiers was passing, the officials said.

The children escaped the attack unscathed, but the explosion badly damaged a military escort vehicle following the minibus, wounding two soldiers, they said.

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.

In recent months, the army has massed troops in the southeast to step up security operations and stop the rebels from penetrating Turkish soil from bases in northern Iraq, where they took refuge after declaring a unilateral ceasefire in 1999. The truce was called off in June 2004.

The Kurdish conflict has claimed more than 37,000 lives since 1984 when the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, took up arms for Kurdish self-rule in the southeast.