Five soldiers wounded in PKK bomb attack in Turkey’s east

BİTLİS / DİYARBAKIR

CİHAN photo

A total of five soldiers were wounded on Sept. 28 in a bomb attack by outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the eastern province of Bitlis, Doğan News Agency reported.

PKK militants remotely detonated a bomb placed in a culvert near an officer’s club in the Tatvan district at around 7:45 a.m. as a military vehicle was passing. According to initial reports, 20 soldiers were wounded, although their condition is not said to be life-threatening.

Security forces have launched an operation in the region to apprehend the PKK militants responsible for the attack.

Meanwhile, an 8-year-old girl was killed and five other people were injured during a curfew in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır’s Bismil district, Anadolu Agency reported.

The Diyarbakır Governor’s Office blamed the attack on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), claiming that militants had attempted to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at an armored carrier but missed, hitting an apartment building instead.

Local media, however, reported that police had fired indiscriminately at houses in the area during the curfew before lobbing an explosive at the house of the Şimşek family. Elif Şimşek, 8, died of her wounds, while five family members were injured in the attack that occurred in the district’s Avaşin neighborhood.

The injured were taken to hospitals in Diyarbakır.

Meanwhile, a PKK militant was killed and another fled following an operation by security forces after an attack on police in Hakkari province, the local governor’s office said.