Three German mountaineers kidnapped by Kurdish rebels: report

0 Comments | AFP, July, 2008

ANKARA (AFP) — Separatist Kurdish rebels have kidnapped three German mountaineers on Mount Ararat in eastern Turkey, a senior local official told the Anatolia news agency Wednesday.

Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) rebels seized the climbers, part of a group of 13 mountaineers, as they were ascending the mountain in Agri province, provincial governor Mehmet Cetin told Anatolia.

Five rebels came to the climbers' camp at an altitude of 3,200 metres and kidnapped three in protest at the German government's crackdown on PKK-affiliated bodies and its supporters in Germany, Cetin said.

Paramilitary troops have launched an operation to rescue the climbers, while the other climbers were brought down from the mountain.

Officials from the German embassy were not...