World IN BRIEF : TURKEY : Kurdish-Related Violence Kills 18

Eighteen people have been killed in an increasingly bloody struggle between Kurdish rebels and security forces in southeast Turkey, the Anatolian news agency said. Left-wing Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) guerrillas killed nine civilians, five of them children, in attacks on two towns in Kahramanmaras province, it said. Officials said security forces killed seven PKK fighters who had attacked government targets in the eastern province of Bitlis. Meanwhile, PKK gunmen fired on a military vehicle near Kulp, in Diyarbakir province, killing a noncommissioned officer and a private.