Three soldiers killed in southeast amid violence outbreak

ISTANBUL – Doğan News Agency

DHA photo

Three Turkish soldiers have been killed in attacks by members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the southeastern province of Şırnak, with the Turkish Air Forces (THK) launching airstrikes in the region, amid an outbreak of violent attacks on security forces in the country.

PKK militants fired shots with long-barreled weapons at security forces on patrol around 8:00 a.m. on Aug. 4, killing two soldiers and injuring a village guard after detonating an explosive placed on the road linking Şırnak and its village of Balveren, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) said in a written statement.

Gendarmerie specialist Sgt. Mehmet Acar and gendarmerie Pvt. Abdulkadir Pektaş were killed in the attack, while two security forces, gendarmerie Pvt. Kadir Akpınar and village guard Hasan Akyol are injured. Fighter jets took off from airbase in Malatya and conducted airstrikes in mountainous area of Dağlıca district of Hakkari soon after the attack on soldiers. 

Meanwhile, one soldier was killed and one soldier was injured in a separate incident that took place in the Silopi district of Şırnak at around 4:30 p.m., according to media reports.

PKK militants attacked a watch post with a rocket-propelled grenade in Silopi. 

Turkey has been immersed in violence against security forces, with scores of deaths and injuries across the country.

A police officer was injured in explosion of a bomb planted by PKK militants, aside a road in the Nusaybin district of the southeastern province of Mardin late Aug. 3.

The militants detonated the remote-controlled bomb while the police officer drove by in a guarded vehicle. 

The officer was taken to the Nusaybin Public Hospital and reported to be in good condition.

Another group of militants from the PKK set ablaze a truck and a long-vehicle transporter on a road connecting Mardin’s Nusaybin and Midyat disticts after stopping the vehicles and forcing their drivers to get off around 8:30 p.m. on Aug 3.

The Mardin Metropolitan Municipality Firefighting Department teams arrived at the scene to extinguish the fire and a comprehensive operation was launched to arrest the perpetrators at large.

PKK militants also fired rockets at the Kulp District Police Department in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır around 10:30 p.m. on Aug. 3, with no casualties reported. Clashes erupted in central Kula after local security forces responded to the attack with fire.

Members of the PKK on Aug. 3 carried out a landmine attack on guarded military vehicles that escorted trucks carrying cement to a hydropower plant construction in the Kigı district of the eastern province of Bingöl, with no casualties reported, the Bingöl Governor’s Office said in a written statement. 

One of the guarded vehicles was damaged as the landmine was detonated by militants while the vehicles were passing by Kigı’s Cevizliçeşme area.

Another group of PKK militants around 8:30 p.m. on Aug 3 fired rockets at the Silvan dam, still being constructed under the control as well as protection of military personnel, in the Silvan district of the southeastern province of Diyarbakır.

One of the rockets was reported to have hit the dining hall in the attack. 

The militants also fired shots at the dam with long-barreled weapons after the rocket fire, to which the soldiers in charge of the security of the dam’s construction responded with fire. The shootout lasted around ten minutes. 

Meanwhile, local gendarmerie forces deactivated explosives planted near the Turkey-Iran gas pipeline in the Eleşkirt district in the eastern province of Ağrı on Aug. 3.

The Ağrı Governor’s Office said in a written statement that the Eleşkirt District Gendarmerie Command forces along with bomb experts deactivated explosives on a five-kilogram-weight that was placed to cut off the pipeline’s gas flow.