Report: Kurdish Rebels Kill 1, Take Hostage

Published January 14, 2015

Suspected Kurdish rebels killed a civilian and were keeping another hostage in a Turkish province near the border with Syria, a local official said Friday according to state-run media.

Rebels hiding in a mountainous area in the southern Hatay province killed the man after forcing him to bring them provisions, Governor Ahmet Kayhan told the Anatolia news agency. Rebels accused the man of informing security forces of their whereabouts, Anatolia reported.

A friend of the slain man was kept hostage by rebels, Anatolia cited the governor as saying. Security forces were after the rebel group, Anatolia said.

Meanwhile, a Kurdish demonstrator wounded in clashes with police in eastern Turkey has died of his injuries, local officials said Friday.

Mehmet Deniz, a farmer, died in a hospital in the town of Ercis on Thursday.

He was injured a day earlier, when a festival to celebrate International Women's Day turned into a demonstration in support of the rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK.

During the confrontation, police fired shots in the air and Kurdish protesters threw stones, Anatolia reported.

The cause of the protester's injuries was in dispute. Protesters said he was beaten by police. According to other accounts, he was struck in the head by a rock thrown during the melee.

It was the second death of a demonstrator in recent pro-Kurdish clashes. On Feb. 16, a youth died of injuries after hundreds of Kurdish protesters battled police in southeastern Turkey during annual demonstrations to demand the release of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, captured and imprisoned nine years ago.

The PKK took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and has fought for Kurdish self-rule in Turkey's southeast.

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