One soldier killed, two wounded in PKK attack in Turkey’s Siirt

SİİRT

One soldier was killed and another two were injured on July 24 in an outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) attack in the Baykan district of the southeastern province of Siirt, Doğan News Agency has reported.

PKK militants opened fire on a civilian-plated vehicle carrying soldiers in the morning hours with long-barreled weapons.

One soldier was killed and two others were wounded in the initial fire. The wounded soldiers were immediately transferred to Baykan State Hospital.

Security forces launched an operation to apprehend the militants responsible for the attack.

Meanwhile, 43 militants were “neutralized” across Turkey in a week, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. 

Authorities use the word “neutralized” in their statements to imply the militants in question were either killed, wounded or captured.

It said 26 militants were killed, three of them captured alive and 14 of them surrendered to security forces.

A total of 1,119 operations were conducted against outlawed organizations across Turkey in a week.  

Some 213 suspects were detained on charges of “aiding and abetting” organizations. At least 46 were detained over suspected links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), while 831 of them were detained over links to the Fethullahist Terrorist Organization (FETÖ). 

Meanwhile, 12 shelters and 18 hand-made explosives were destroyed in operations in the southeastern provinces of Batman, Şırnak, Diyarbakır and the eastern provinces of Tunceli and Bingöl.

Seven tons of explosive materials, 41 hand grenades, and 33 long-barreled weapons were also seized during the operation.