Six people were injured in Turkey?s troubled southeast late on Saturday by a landmine which security sources said was planted by Kurdish rebels active in the area.

The victims, all civilians, were hurt when their truck hit the mine, left on a road servicing coal mines in Sirnak province which borders Iraq, an official said.

In a separate attack, three police officers were wounded early yesterday in the town of Hozrat in Tunceli province when unidentified assailants threw a hand grenade at the policemen?s post, police sources said. They blamed the attack on the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

Rebels from the PKK have stepped up attacks on military and strategic targets after calling off a unilateral ceasefire in June 2004.

On Saturday, three soldiers were killed and eight wounded when their vehicle hit a landmine in Hakkari province.

Officials have said a few thousand PKK guerrillas have crossed the border into Turkey from northern Iraq since the end of the truce, many of them armed with explosives used to make homemade landmines and bombs.

The PKK launched an armed campaign against the Turkish state in 1984 in a bid to establish an ethnic homeland in the country?s mainly Kurdish southeast. More than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, have died in the conflict.