Three police officers, one civilian dead in attacks in Turkey’s southeast

DİYARBAKIR / ŞIRNAK – Anadolu Agency

DHA photo

Three police officers and a civilian have been killed and five policemen and one civilian wounded in attacks staged by suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), while funerals for the killed police officers took place in their hometowns. 

A police officer, İlker Narin, who was injured in an attack on a police vehicle conducting traffic checks in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır’s Kayapınar on Aug. 30, succumbed to his injuries at hospital later on the same day. Narin’s fellow policeman, Ahmet Gılıç, had died on the way to hospital after being injured in the attack. 

Another police officer, Yılmaz Dikmen, was killed in an attack at the police guest house in Şırnak’s Silopi district late on Aug. 30. 

Suspected members of the PKK attacked the PKK police guesthouse in Silopi with rocket-propelled grenade and long barreled weapons, after which clashes erupted between the PKK militants and police officers. 

A ceremony to commemorate the three police officers killed in Diyarbakır and Şırnak was held in the provincial police department in Diyarbakır. 

Dikmen’s body was sent to be laid to rest in his hometown in the Central Anatolian province of Kırıkkale, Gılıç’s body was sent to the Aegean province of İzmir, and Narin’s body was sent to the Black Sea province of Kastamonu. 

Meanwhile, one civilian, 55-year-old Fatma Ay, was killed in the crossfire during clashes in the southeastern province of Şırnak’s Silopi district. It was not known where exactly the bullet came from, as clashes were ongoing between members of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), the PKK’s youth wing, and the security forces in the Karşıyaka neighborhood of Silopi.

Ay and 17-year-old Berfin Ökten had come out to the balcony of their home after they heard guns being fired. Ay and Ökten were both injured by shots, Ökten is still being treated in hospital. 

Meanwhile, on Aug. 31 at least five policemen were injured in a roadside bomb attack on a police vehicle in Şırnak, official security sources said.

According to official sources, members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) detonated a bomb planted on the İdil-Cizre Highway as an armored police car was passing by.

The injured policemen were taken to İdil State Hospital for treatment.

Operations against the PKK – listed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States – came after it renewed attacks on Turkish security forces following the July 20 Suruç bombing that killed 33 socialist activists. The attack was blamed on jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), but the PKK accuses the Turkish government of responsibility.