Forty-one killed in attack on Turk wedding

Ahmet Ferhat Ozen told Reuters by telephone the assailants, wearing masks, stormed into a hall where wedding guests were assembled and opened fire with automatic rifles and hand grenades.

The local paramilitary police were dispatched to the village, Sultankoy, to pursue the attackers.

Ozen said many more were wounded and the number of dead could rise.

Local media said the families of both the bride and the groom included members of the state-sponsored militia, the Village Guard, set up to combat Kurdish separatist guerrillas in the area.

It was not immediately clear if the incident was linked to the Village Guard or to Kurdish rebels. Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels have been fighting Turkish forces in the southeast since 1984. Some 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have been killed in conflict. Few individual incidents associated with the conflict have produced such a high death toll.