Four killed in PKK attacks in Turkey’s southeast

MARDİN/ŞIRNAK

AA photo

Funeral ceremonies have been held in Turkey’s southeastern Mardin and Şırnak provinces for four security officials killed in separate attacks by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) amid ongoing clashes between security forces and the outlawed group. 

A joint ceremony was organized at Turkey’s 70th Mechanized Infantry Brigade for Major Turgay Çelik, Sergeant Selçuk Karabakla and village guard Adnan Durak who were killed in PKK attacks in Mardin’s Nusaybin district on April 4. 

PKK militants attacked security forces with rocket launchers in Nusaybin, where a curfew has been imposed since March 14, injuring three soldiers on April 4. 

The severely injured soldiers were taken to Nusaybin State Hospital, but Çelik and Karabakla succumbed to their injuries, while treatment for the other soldier has been ongoing.

Meanwhile, Durak, a 45-year-old village guard, was killed in a separate armed attack by the PKK militants in the same district on April 4. 

Durak was taking his children to the hospital for vaccinations when militants opened fire at him.
 
The gendarmerie has started an extensive investigation into the escaped militants.

In a third attack in the Cudi neighborhood of Şırnak’s Silopi district, police officer Yaşar Yavaş was killed and four others were wounded early April 5. 

Militants attacked an armored police vehicle with rocket launchers, wounding five police officers. The injured were taken to the Silopi State Hospital, where Yaşar succumbed to his injuries. Treatment of the four others is continuing.

Reinforcing security forces were moved to the district and clashes between the security forces and the militants took place, especially in Cudi, where gunshots were heard throughout the night.

A curfew has been imposed, starting from 4:30 a.m. until further notice, in Silopi.

Amid reports on security officials killed in PKK attacks, the death toll of a March 31 car bomb attack by the PKK in southeastern Diyarbakır province also increased to eight as a deputy police chief succumbed to his injuries at a hospital on April 5. 

Deputy police chief Tamer Aktaş was heavily wounded in the attack and later transferred to Diyarbakır Military Hospital. 

Aktaş was laid to rest in his hometown Gümüşhane following a funeral ceremony in the Diyarbakır Security General Directorate.

Initially, seven police officers were killed and more than 27 people injured, including 13 police officers, in the PKK attack near a police shuttle in the Bağlar district of Diyarbakır. 

Meanwhile, three suspected militants of the outlawed group Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP) were caught in an operation on early April 5 in the Aegean province of İzmir as they were preparing a bomb attack on the city.

İzmir counter-terrorism and intelligence police units had followed the suspected militants, and later raided a cell house where the militants had prepared the explosives in the city’s Buca district.

The militants detained in the operation were members of the MLKP’s armed wing, known as the Armed Forces of the Poor and the Oppressed (FESK). Police also seized the equipment used to make bombs and triacetone triperoxidean (TATP), a high explosiv bomb, during searches inside the house. Fake identity cards were also seized during the operation.

It has also been revealed that the militants were trained to use arms and make bombs in the Syrian city of Kobane near Turkish border and arrived at the cell house to make explosives ready for attack. 

It has been alleged the militants were to specifically target security forces in a potential attack. 

The three detained militants were later transferred to the İzmir counter-terrorism branch office.