Dozens detained in anti-PKK raids across Turkey amid upsurge in violence

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

As many as 54 suspects have been detained across Turkey in multiple anti-terror police operations against the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) amid an upsurge in violence against security forces.

The police have launched a new series of anti-terror operations, against PKK and and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), while burial ceremonies for the three soldiers who died in a terrorist attack by the PKK in the southeastern province of Şırnak were held Aug. 5. 

Mehmet Acar’s funeral ceremony was held in the southern province of Osmaniye, while Abdulhalit Araz’s was held in the eastern province of Van and that of Abdülkadir Pektaş in the Aegean province of İzmir. 

Eleven suspects were detained in the eastern province of Şırnak on Aug. 5. Four of them were detained for committing violent acts related to the PKK over the death of a soldier in a terrorist attack in Şırnak’s Silopi district on Aug. 4. 

Seven other suspects were detained in an anti-terror police operation in Şırnak’s Uludere distirct on Aug. 5, the Şırnak Governor’s Office said in a written statement.

In the Central Anatolian province of Konya late Aug. 4, five suspects, including two women, were detained in an anti-terror police operation against a PKK-linked youth organization in Konya’s Selçuklu district. 

The Konya Police Department Counterterrorism Unit raided the Ronahi Democratic and Libertarian Student Association, a non-governmental organization in the Fatih Işıklar neighborhood of Konya’s Selçuklu district, which purportedly held activities on behalf of the PKK.