Kurds in major clash with Turkey near Iraqi border

ANKARA [MENL] -- Twelve Kurdish insurgents were killed in a clash with Turkish military forces near the Iraqi border, the Anatolia news agency reported on Wednesday.

The agency did not say when the clash took place. It said the fighting was in southeastern Turkey near the Iraqi border, a hotbed of insurgency.

But the report came one day after the death sentence handed down on Kurdish Workers Party leader Abdullah Ocalan.

Ocalan's PKK party has threatened revenge attacks on Turkish cities.

Kurdish supporters continued demonstrations in Europe to protest the verdict against Ocalan. No violence was immediately reported.

Hundreds of Kurds demonstrated in front of the Israeli embassy in Bonn. The embassy was surrounded by a large police force.

Several countries have been placed on alert in the wake of the Ocalan death sentence, opposed by the European Union. The countries include Austria, Germany, Belgium, Israel and the United States. The United States has temporarily closed its consulates in several Turkish cities amid threats by Kurdish insurgents to retaliate for the death sentence imposed on Abdullah Ocalan.

U.S. officials said consulates have been closed in Istanbul and Adana out of concern over terrorist attacks. They said the consulates would be closed until Thursday.

"We're taking a number of steps to deal with the potential security situation in the aftermath of this decision,'' State Department spokesman James Rubin said on Tuesday.

The U.S. Embassy in Ankara and a third consulate, in Izmir, would remain open, Rubin said.

Colleagues of Ocalan in his Kurdish Workers Party accused the United States of helping Turkey capture the insurgent leader in February. Rubin said U.S. authorities had not received new threats since the Ocalan sentencing on Tuesday.