A quarter of the explosives as well as a detonator were discovered in the home of a member of the township council of Silopi, in Sirnak province, whom the NTV news channel identified as the town's Kurdish deputy mayor Abdulaziz Coban.

The security forces launched the operation upon learning that two militants from the rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) had come to Silopi to carry out "simultaneous sensational bombings/armed attacks," the office of the Sirnak governor said.

The suspects aimed to spread to Sirnak a wave of unrest that rattled the neighboring province of Hakkari last month, the statement said.

Two PKK members and seven people who were aiding and abetting them were among the detainees, it said.

The police also seized two detonators, seven guns and PKK documents in the homes where the PKK militants were detained.

NTV reported that Coban remained at large and was wanted by the police.

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