Man killed in PKK bomb attack in eastern Turkey

ŞIRNAK – Doğan News Agency

DHA Photos

A civilian has been killed in explosion of a bomb planted by members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the eastern province of Şırnak, amid spiraling violence between PKK members and security forces across the country.

Sahip Akıl was killed, landing 50 meters away, after the remote-controlled bomb was detonated by militants around 12 a.m. on Aug. 5 while the bus Akıl was driving passed by the intersection of the Botaş and Varol streets in Şırnak’s Cizre district.

A large number of guarded police vehicles and ambulances were dispatched to the scene, and the body of Akıl was taken to the Cizre Public Hospital.

Over the past two days, Turkey has been roiled in a series of violent attacks on its security personnel in multiple provinces around the country.

PKK militants carried out a bomb attack on a guarded police vehicle in the eastern province of Bitlis around 5:45 p.m. on Aug. 5, with no casualties or physical damage reported.

In the eastern province of Tunceli early Aug. 6, PKK militants fired shots with long-barreled weapons and rockets at Turkish military personnel, carrying Sikorskys and other material, to a gendarmerie station in the Pülümür Valley, 17 kilometers from central Tunceli.

In the eastern province of Diyarbakır, PKK militants fired shots with long-barreled weapons and rockets at a gendarmerie command building in the Hani district of the southeastern province of Diyarbakır around 4 p.m. Aug. 5, with no casualties reported.

In the southeastern province of Hakkari, PKK militants fired mortar shells at soldiers in the Çayırlı military base in the Çukurca district on Aug. 5, the Turkish General Staff said in a written statement.

Again in Bitlis on Aug. 5, PKK militants set a caterpillar on fire near the village of Döşkaya around 1 a.m., the general staff said in a separate statement.

As part of a series of security measures in Turkey’s east and southeast, three Syria-bordering areas between the districts of Akçakale and Suruç in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa, were declared “military security zone” for 15 days, the Şanlıurfa Governor’s Office said in a written statement Aug. 6.