DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (AFP) – More buffer zones designed to prevent Kurdish rebels from crossing over the border to and from Iraq have been established in southeastern Turkey, the Turkish military announced on Saturday. The 27 zones set up in the regions of Sirnak, Siirt and Hakkari add to others created in June, the military said in a statement posted on its official website. The buffer zones are to stay in place until December 10 and are aimed at stopping the flow of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels using northern Iraq as a rear base for operations for southern Turkey, it said. At the same time, security officials in the southeast said a big army sweep was underway to find Kurdish rebels who used heavy weapons to attack a military post in Baskale, near the border with Iran. A soldier was killed in the attack.

BELGRADE (AP) – Doctors have concluded that the suspect in a shooting spree that left nine people dead in Serbia was psychotic when he allegedly committed the crime in July, a prosecutor said on Saturday. Radoslav Nedeljkovic, deputy public prosecutor in eastern Serbia, said a two-month medical examination of suspect Nikola Radosavljevic showed he had not been aware of what he was doing at the time of the shooting. Nedeljkovic did not say if Radosavljevic, 38, would be put on trial or given medical treatment after the doctors’ report. Radosavljevic was arrested shortly after he allegedly fired his gun randomly at passers by in Jabukovac, a village near the Bulgarian border. Nine people were killed and two wounded in the shooting, police said.

One Turkish soldier was killed in the southeastern province of Van when Kurdish separatists opened fire on military headquarters, security forces said on Saturday. The attack comes a week after members of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) ambushed a minibus in the troubled region and killed 12 of the passengers. Three Kurdish rebels were killed earlier this week in firefights. Turkey is trying to clamp down on rebel insurgents ahead of harsh winter conditions that brings most PKK movement in the area to a halt. Last month Turkey signed an anti-terror agreement with Baghdad aimed at stopping attacks from Iraq’s Kurdish-controlled northern province bordering Turkey, where Kurdish rebels are based. (Reuters)