DIYARBAKIR: Turkish security forces have killed five Kurdish guerrillas in a clash in southeastern Turkey, a security official said on Thursday. Fighting broke out late on Wednesday in the mountains of remote Sirnak province, near the Iraqi border, and an operation against the rebels was continuing, the official said. The rebels belonged to the separatist Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), he said. The PKK launched an armed campaign against the Turkish state in 1984, and more than 30,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in the violence in the mainly Kurdish southeast. Fighting dropped off significantly in 1999 when Turkey captured PKK commander Abdullah Ocalan, but the PKK called off its unilateral ceasefire in 2004, threatening to wreck the southeast's fragile peace.