Kurdish rebels killed 24 soldiers and policemen Wednesday in a series of pre-dawn attacks in south-eastern Turkey, inflicting the heaviest single blow on the Turkish military for years.

Turkey responded with airstrikes on suspected bases of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq while Turkish troops crossed the Iraqi border in pursuit of the rebels, the NTV channel reported.

By late Wednesday, CNNTurk was reporting a total of 21 PKK members killed in those operations, either in Turkey or northern Iraq - although there was no official confirmation of that figure.

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A NATO spokesperson has confirmed that its troops fired on Serb protesters in the Mitrovica region. According to the statement, they were responding to an attack by the crowd.

Figures for the number of wounded vary, but hospital officials say at least six Serb protesters and four NATO soldiers were injured. The Alliance’s representative in Kosovo, Kai Gudenoge, said Serb protesters threw pipe bombs at troops stationed along the border between Serbia and Kosovo.

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One police officer has been killed and some 60 people injured as a result of a double terror attack in the capital of the Russian republic of Dagestan, Makhachkala. Militants wanted over the blast are being besieged by federal troops.

Several militants are blocked in a village house in the north of Dagestan region, counter terror officials reported. Negotiations with the alleged organizers of the overnight blasts in the capital are being held at the moment.

One of the bandits has been killed in the shoot-out, reports Interfax news agency citing the National Counter-Terrorism Committee.

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Seven people have been killed and 18 injured in a double suicide attack in the southern Russian republic of Chechnya.

According to the head of the republic, Ramzan Kadyrov, the blasts in the Chechen capital Grozny claimed the lives of five policemen, one Emergencies Ministry worker and one civilian.

The first explosion hit Grozny at about 9:45 p.m. local time on Tuesday, when a suicide bomber blew himself up while police were trying to detain him. The second followed about an hour later, after a crowd had gathered at the scene of the first blast.

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Turkey’s armed forces said on Monday some 145-160 Kurdish guerrillas were killed in the military’s air and artillery strikes in northern Iraq this month, raising the toll from between 90 and 100 rebels.

The attacks, the first in more than a year on suspected Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebel bases in Iraq, were launched after PKK assaults in Turkey killed more than 40 security force personnel over the previous month.

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