PKK militants make ‘teapot bombs,’ hide explosives in walls

HAKKARİ/ MARDİN

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Security forces in Yüksekova have seized images and video recordings of outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants allegedly showing them preparing hand-made explosives using dozens of teapots.

While the militants were reportedly killed during a raid in the southeastern district, the images and video recording showed them preparing explosives as they sang songs and posed on the sacks used to carry ammonium nitrate, which is used to make explosives.

In a raid on a workshop on March 25, security forces in Yüksekova also seized a total of 55 teapots which were used to bear hand-made explosives that are planned to be used in future PKK attacks. 

Some others materials seized by the security forces included 10 set-ups for armored vehicles, two tons of ammonium nitrate, a hand-made explosive prepared in a pressure cooker, 11 kitchen gas tubes, 150 electrified capsules and two fire extinguishers.

Meanwhile, details of an attack in the Nusaybin district of the southeastern Mardin province that killed six soldiers on April 2 are emerging, with police determining that the explosives used by the militants were connected to each other with a cable and were plastered inside the walls of a building where the attack took place. It was reported that after the soldiers cleared the building, they re-entered for a final check and at that point, explosives hidden behind the walls were detonated. 

Sources said the motive behind hiding the explosives inside the walls was to avert the Jammer system, which is used by security forces to reduce the risks of explosions by remote bombing devices inside buildings.

As security operations are ongoing in the southeastern towns of Yüksekova in Hakkari, Nusaybin in Mardin, and Şırnak province, police also detained 12 people on April 4 as part of a probe launched to investigate the PKK’s roadside bomb attack that killed seven police officers in the Bağlar district of Diyarbakır on March 31.