Kidnapped Turkish guard murdered execution-style

A Turkish village guard who disappeared last month was killed by separatists who shot him against a post in an execution-style killing, the army said Oct. 27.

The corpse of the man, who the army said was abducted on Sept. 12, was found Oct. 26 tied with electrical wire to a telegraph post in the district of Tatvan of Bitlis province in southeastern Turkey.

"He was killed by shots fired from different directions to the face and to the body," the army said in a statement.        

Turkish media said the corpse had been spotted by local residents. Previous reports said the man had been found hanged.

The army blamed the "separatist terror organisation," its customary phrase to describe the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) to which it never refers to by name.

The dead man - identified as Nihat C-Çaprak - worked as an armed village guard under a system created by the authorities in the 1980s to protect villages against attacks by the PKK.

His killing came after three Turkish soldiers were shot dead on a busy street in southeast Turkey on Oct 25, in a killing the army also blamed on the militants, while Interior Minister Efkan Ala spoke about "masked individuals."

Despite a ceasefire in place since March 2013, tensions have spiralled in recent weeks over the government's strategy against Islamic State jihadists attempting to seize the Kurdish town of Kobane in northern Syria.