Ankara - Nineteen prison employees in Turkey were suspended Tuesday on suspicion of taking part or being an accomplice in the torture and murder of leftist activist Engin Ceber in Istanbul last week, the Anadolu news agency reported.

The list of those suspended included a number of senior officials at Istanbul's Metris Prison, as well as the prison doctor who had written a report on Ceber's health without ever seeing the prisoner.

Ankara - Turkey is to send a government delegation to Baghdad Tuesday in an attempt to push authorites in northern Iraq to clamp down on the activities of the separatist Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) who use the mountainous northern areas as a base to launch attacks inside Turkey, the NTV private television station reported.

The delegation is expected to meet Massoud Barzani, president of the Kurdistan Regional Administration, and to express Ankara's disappointment that more action is not being taken against the PKK.

Ankara - The Turkish parliament Wednesday extended for one year a mandate that allows the Turkish military to launch cross- border operations into northern Iraq to hunt down Kurdish separatists, who use the mountainous terrain as a base from which to launch attacks inside Turkey.

The mandate was carried by a clear majority, with 511 deputies voting in favour and only 18 against. The original mandate was due to end October 17. It now runs through October 2009.

Ankara - Three police officers and one civilian were killed and 15 police wounded Wednesday when two unknown attackers fired at a police service bus in the south-eastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir, the NTV private television station reported.

The service bus was carrying police officers from a police school in the city when it was attacked at around 5 pm (1400 GMT). The attackers fled the scene and police launched a large-scale search operation.

Ankara - Four Kurdish separatists and one Turkish soldier were killed Tuesday in south-east Turkey, the Turkish military announced Wednesday.

In a short statement posted on its official website, the Turkish General Staff said the four Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) separatists were killed in a firefight with Turkish soldiers that broke out around 9 pm Tuesday night in a mountainous area of the Sirnak region.

Ankara - Turkish warplanes bombed suspected Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK) positions in northern Iraq on Monday morning, three days after a PKK attack on a border post killed 15 Turkish soldiers.

According to a statement released by the Turkish General Staff, the warplanes bombed PKK positions in the mountainous Avasin region of northern Iraq.