At least 14 of the officers died in an attack on a police minibus in the eastern province of Igdir. A remote-controlled bomb exploded when the vehicle passed it on its way to Dilucu, at the border with Azerbaijan, the Anadolu news agency reported. Among the victims was one who had been the bodyguard of the former Turkish president, Abdullah Gul, who has issued a message of condolence and visited the bereaved family. The other four were killed in two separate attacks in the south-east of Turkey: three when PKK militants fired a rocket at their armoured vehicle; one in Tunceli, in the valley of Pulumur, where he was attacked while travelling with his daughter, who was not harmed. The new attacks came as the Turkish armed forces intensified their shelling of Kurdish separatists in northern Iraq, in response to the ambush on Sunday in the southeast of Turkey, in which 16 soldiers were killed. The prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, has vowed to "wipe out PKK militants from the mountains" of eastern Turkey following the deaths. As part of the new offensive, Turkey sent some fifty F-4 and F-16 fighter aircraft to bomb PKK positions in northern Iraq, killing between 35 and 40 Kurdish militiamen. Ankara has also confirmed that Turkish special forces have penetrated into northern Iraq to hunt down PKK terrorists, "a special measure to keep the terrorists from escaping.". (AGI)