Turkish troops killed in clashes

Kurdish rebels have killed 15 Turkish soldiers near Semdinli in the country’s south-east, the military says. The soldiers died during an attack by fighters said to be from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), based over the border in northern Iraq. Generals said troops fought back, killing 23 rebels, but that two soldiers were missing after the attackTurkey blames the PKK for a series of bomb attacks on its cities, and often targets rebels with air strikes.

More than 40,000 people are thought to have been killed since 1984, when the PKK launched its campaign for a Kurdish homeland in south-eastern Turkey. The latest attack was a surprise strike on a military outpost by guerrillas using heavy weapons. The ambush prompted the most intense fighting and led to the highest number of casualties in a year, says the BBC’s Turkey correspondent Sarah Rainsford.

Ethiopia frees Kenyan ‘Islamists’

Eight Kenyan men deported to Ethiopia and jailed as terror suspects for more than a year have returned to Kenya. The eight were imprisoned in 2007 on suspicion of being members of an Islamic militia driven out of Somalia by Ethiopian troops. Human rights activists and Muslim groups say Kenya’s government rounded up and deported terror suspects after thousands of people fled Somalia. A Kenyan official said all eight had now been returned to their homes. “Eight Kenyans who had been fighting with Somali separatists and who had been held in Ethiopia were early this morning returned home to Kenya,” government spokesman Alfred Mutua said in a statement.

US kills ’senior Baghdad bomber’

A man said to be the planner of series of deadly al-Qaeda attacks in Iraq has been killed, the US military says. Mahir al-Zubaydi, also known as Abu Assad or Abu Rami, was said to head the group behind bombings which killed at least 16 people in Baghdad this week. US officials described him as the al-Qaeda military commander for the whole of Baghdad east of the Tigris river. They say he played a key role in planning some of the worst atrocities in Iraq over the past few years. Zubaydi also took part in the videotaped killing of four Russian diplomats in June 2006, officials say.

US troops targeted Zubaydi on Friday after receiving intelligence following bombings in Baghdad against Shia Muslim mosques. Troops tracked him down to a house in the Adhamiya district of Baghdad, a strongly Sunni Muslim area, surrounded the building and used loud speakers to order the suspect to surrender, reports the BBC’s Hugh Sykes, in Baghdad. The Americans say he responded by shooting at them, so they shot him, our correspondent says. A woman reported to be his wife was also killed.