Eight Turkish police officers were killed and nine wounded when a roadside mine exploded in the Karliova district of Bingol in southern Turkey yesterday.

The mine was detonated by suspected Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants as a police bus was passing. The governor's office in the southeastern province of Hakkari said Turkish armed forces had killed 123 Kurdish militants in the past ten days in a major offensive against PKK bases. The past few months have seen some of the heaviest fighting since the outlawed PKK, considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out a Kurdish state.