A landmine explosion killed five police officers and three civilians in Turkey on Tuesday, in an attack which security sources blamed on Kurdish rebels.

A landmine explosion killed five police officers and three civilians in Turkey on Tuesday, in an attack which security sources blamed on Kurdish rebels, the local governor said.

The mine, planted on a rural road in a village near the Guroymak district of Bitlis province in the mainly Kurdish southeast, was detonated by remote control as a police car was passing by, the Anatolia news agency quoted governor Nurettin Yilmaz as saying.

The death toll rose to eight when one of the four who were injured died at a hospital, the governor told the agency. A two-year-old girl was among the dead.

The remaining three who were injured were at the intensive care unit, said the governor.

Security forces combed the area in search of the assailants, believed to be members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

Land mine attacks by suspected PKK guerrillas have become common in Turkey's eastern and southeastern provinces.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed about 45,000 lives.