Blast in southeast Turkey wounds 2 soldiers

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey (World News) - Two soldiers were wounded when a blast struck their minibus in Turkey's southeastern Hakkari province on Thursday morning, a Turkish official and state media said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which took place as the soldiers were traveling in a civilian minibus outside the provincial capital, Hakkari governor Muammer Turker said.

Guerrillas from the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) group have carried out a string of attacks in the southeast of the country recently.

Two soldiers were wounded and 13 others lightly injured when the blast caused the bus to roll over, state-run news agency Anatolian reported Turker as saying.

PKK rebels have stepped up attacks on the Turkish military, killing more than 40 security personnel in the past month.

In retaliation, the Turkish military launched air raids on PKK targets in northern Iraq, its first strikes in the region in more than a year.

Bo th the central government in Baghdad and regional Kurdish authorities have condemned the Turkish raids as a violation of Iraq's sovereignty. The PKK took up arms against the state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have died in the conflict.