Dubai: Kurdish rebels have attacked Turkish security forces in two separate assaults in southeast Turkey, killing five people, officials said. One rebel was also killed.
The assaults come amid renewed violence between Turkish forces and the autonomy-seeking Kurdish insurgents, fighting that has shattered a fragile peace process that the two sides started in 2012.
Three Turkish troops were killed on Thursday when Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants opened fire on their convoy in the southeastern province of Sirnak, the army said.
“As a result of an attack by the Separatist Terror Organisation three of our brave personnel — one officer, one non-commissioned officer and one private — were killed,” said the army, using its customary phrase for the PKK which it never refers to by name.
The army said that the military convoy was ambushed by PKK members as it was travelling along a road while carrying out a security operation in the Akcay district of Sirnak province, which borders both Syria and Iraq.
“Drones, helicopter gunships and commando units have been dispatched to the scene,” it said, adding that one “terrorist” had been killed in the clashes and operations were continuing.
The killings are the latest in a spike in unrest as Turkey carries out a bombing campaign against targets of Daesh militants in Syria and PKK militants in northern Iraq.
The PKK has largely observed a ceasefire since 2013 but over the last week deadly attacks on the security forces blamed on the militants have occurred almost daily.
In an earlier attack, Kurdish rebels opened fire late on Wednesday on a tea house in the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir, killing a police officer and a civilian. Policeman Mehmet Uyar was sitting in front of a tea house in the Cinar district of the southeastern Diyarbakir region late on Wednesday when unknown gunmen opened fire from a car, the Anatolia and Dogan news agencies reported.
Both the policeman and one civilian passer-by named as Osman Caran later died of their wounds in hospital overnight. Another civilian was wounded.
Meanwhile, the leader of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish opposition HDP said on Thursday that the main aim of the government’s recent military operations in northern Syria is to prevent Kurdish territorial unity and not to combat Daesh.
Selahattin Demirtas said in an interview that the ruling AK Party was dragging the country into conflict in revenge for losing its majority in a June 7 general election, when the HDP entered parliament as a party for the first time.
Ankara says it is fighting a two-pronged “war on terror” against Daesh in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in northern Iraq.
But after initially targeting Daesh, the campaign has become increasingly focused on the PKK, with the Turkish air force bombing dozens of targets in an almost weeklong campaign.
In apparent response, there has been a new wave of attacks on security forces in southeastern Turkey blamed on the PKK with at least eight police and army members killed since last week.
Funeral ceremonies for slain police and soldiers have now become an almost daily event, broadcast live on national television.
— with inputs from agencies
