French tourists reported kidnapped by Kurds

ISTANBUL - Four French tourists in south-east Turkey were reported kidnapped yesterday by the same band of Kurdish rebels that abducted a British engineer and his girlfriend three weeks ago, writes Hugh Pope. The military wing of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) said its Garzan battalion had seized the four middle-aged men from among 24 French tourists near Lake Van. In Istanbul, a bomb exploded prematurely, injuring an Italian tourist and three people believed to have planted it.