KurdistanObserver.com

Kurdish Rebel Official Dies In Car Fire In Sulaimani

SULAIMANI, (Southern Kurdistan), Feb 11 (Reuters) - A former leading member of Turkey's Kurdish PKK guerrilla group died on Saturday when his car caught fire in the northern Iraqi city of Sulaimani, police said.

Kani Yilmaz and his bodyguard burned to death in a blaze which a preliminary investigation suggested was ignited by an electrical fault in the engine, Sulaimani security chief Sarkwat Hassan told Reuters.

Hassan stressed the cause of the fire was still under investigation.

The CNN Turk Web site said Yilmaz's car blew up as it left a petrol station. Police said a child passing by was injured.

Yilmaz was once a member of the PKK's central committee and its representative in Europe, but broke away to become the spokesman for the Patriotic Democratic Party of Kurdistan, which rejects violence.

The PKK is fighting for self-rule in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast. More than 30,000 people, most of them Kurds, have been killed since the PKK took up arms in 1984.

Kani Yilmaz was a nom de guerre, his original name being Faysal Dunlayici.

After PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan was captured in 1999, Yilmaz failed in attempts to secure asylum in European countries and withdrew to the mountains of northern Iraq.