The rebels were killed in a raid by elite police, acting on a tip-off, on a house where the two were staying, Anatolia said.

The operation comes after two soldiers and a civilian died in a rebel attack on Thursday also in eastern Turkey, which has seen a surge of violence in recent weeks.

The separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has dramatically stepped up violence this month, threatening to spread its attacks outside the Kurdish-majority southeast, its main area of operation.

Four soldiers and a teenage girl died on Tuesday when Kurdish rebels bombed a bus carrying army personnel and their families with a remote-controlled device planted alongside a road in a suburb of Istanbul.

An Istanbul court ordered a fourth suspect in the attack to be jailed after ordering three others to prison on Wednesday.

In Ankara an army spokesman voiced satisfaction with cooperation between Turkey and the United States against PKK hideouts in Iraq.

"Information sharing between Turkey and the United States is going very well," General Fahri Kir told journalists.

He said US army Predator-type drones were flying over northern Iraq for 15 to 16 hours a day under Turkish control with the Turkish army analysing the images taken by them in real time.

The PKK took up arms for self-rule in the southeast in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.