Turks arrest bombing suspect

Turkish police have arrested a man they suspect was behind the attack in which a young Irish woman was killed last summer.

Seventeen-year-old Tara Whelan was one of five people to die in the remote-controlled bus bomb blast in the Aegean resort town of Kusadasi last year, it was reported today.

The arrested man was said to be a member of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, a group that has been fighting for autonomy for more than two decades in Turkey’s mountainous, Kurdish-populated south-east. The PKK is on the US list of terrorist organisations.

Police said the arrest followed a nine-month pursuit in which the man, identified only as M.S.F., travelled to northern Iraq for training at PKK camps. He was said to be preparing for another attack in Turkey.

The bombing in Kusadasi in 2005 blew apart a minibus packed with tourists, killing five people and injuring 13 others. Apart from Tara Whelan and a British woman, the victims were Turkish.

Police took the man first to Istanbul, then to Izmir on the Aegean for detention and questioning, Anatolia said.

A wave of Kurdish-related violence has swept across Turkey in the past two weeks.

The funerals of 14 Kurdish guerrillas killed by Turkish troops two weeks ago sparked the worst violence in decades between security forces and Kurdish protesters, which led to the deaths of 16 people. Much of the country remains on edge as militants have vowed revenge.

Today, the Anatolia news agency reported that Turkish commandos backed by attack helicopters tracked down and killed six more PKK guerrillas they said were responsible for the recent deaths of five Turkish soldiers.

Also a land mine in the eastern town of Elazig exploded on a road as a military vehicle passed, local officials said. No injuries or deaths were immediately reported.

Turkey, the US and the European Union consider the PKK a terrorist organisation, but funerals for its guerrillas frequently turn into rallies against the Turkish state.

Two other PKK guerrillas escaped during the clash late Friday night, Anatolia reported.

The Turkish army has stepped up operations in the south-east following the week of rioting, bombings and increased militant attacks on Turkish security forces.

The five Turkish troops were killed Tuesday in an ambush near Kupeli Mountain in Sirnak province on the Iraqi border. The guerrillas were killed in the same region.

Police also said that a bombing at a mosque on Friday was likely not Kurdish-related. Police said the bomber, who killed herself and wounded two others when she blew herself up in front of a mosque in the Black Sea city of Ordu, was a militant member of a Turkish communist organisation.

Police said the organisation did not have a history of suicide attacks, and the woman may have accidentally blown herself up while placing the bomb.