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Three soldiers, 11 militants killed in Turkey clashes

Turkish soldiers stand guard near the Turkey-Syrian border post in Sanliurfa, September 4, 2015. (AFP)

Over a dozen people have been killed in clashes between Turkish security forces and militants in the predominantly Kurdish-populated regions of the country.

Turkish officials said on Friday that security forces killed eleven militants belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, also known as the PKK, on Thursday in clashes in the towns of Cizre and Silopi, near Turkey's border with Syria and Iraq.

Two Turkish soldiers died when their vehicle hit a buried explosive in the town of Lice, the Turkish military said in a statement. A third was killed and three more wounded in clashes in the Ercis district of Van Province during a dawn operation by security forces acting on a tip-off that militants were holed up in a house, the military said on its website.

Turkey has been engaged in one of its biggest military operations in the southern border region in the recent past. The Turkish military has been conducting offensives against alleged positions of the Daesh terrorists in northern Syria as well as those of the PKK militants in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 20 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc, where over 30 people died. The Turkish government blamed Daesh for the bombing.

Ankara’s military campaign against the PKK voided a shaky ceasefire declared in 2013.

On Friday, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu once again vowed to press ahead with anti-PKK operations.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed that his government will fight the PKK until all of its militants are “liquidated.”


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