The terrorists accused the villagers of not supporting a political candidate backed by them in the July 22 elections and held the hostages for a week before releasing them in the, a local official told Reuters speaking on condition of anonymity.

  A group of pro-Kurdish politicians in the general elections ran as independent candidates to get around a 10 percent vote threshold required for parties to enter the Parliament, and those who were elected reunited under the banner of Democratic Society Party (DTP) after the vote. The party is believed to have ties with the outlawed group.

  The kidnappers had allegedly asked the villagers to vote for one of those independents, but they refused to do so, the official said.

  Officials reported the villagers as saying that 10-15 PKK members had been involved. Initial reports said the kidnappers had taken eight people, but the number rose to nine after a man told gendarmes his son had gone missing too.

  Turkish forces are building up in southeast Turkey, fuelling speculation they may mount a cross-border operation against thousands of PKK militants based in the northern Iraq mountains.

  The outlawed PKK launched a separatist insurgency in 1984, and more than 30,000 people have died in the conflict. Fighting subsided after the capture of the group's leader, Abdullah Öcalan, in 1999 but has flared up again in recent years.

  Three Turkish soldiers were killed on Saturday when their vehicle was blown up by a remote controlled explosive device laid by the rebels in the eastern province of Tunceli amid a heavy wave of fighting in the region.