News / Turkey

Two policemen killed, 10 injured in southeast Turkey

Tuesday, 19 January 2016 11:10 AM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 19 January 2016 1:25 PM ]

Turkish police carry the coffin of a slain comrade as others salute during a funeral in the Sur district of Diyarbakir Province, Turkey, January 4, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

At least two Turkish police officers have lost their lives and nearly a dozen others injured in a rocket attack that targeted their armored military vehicle in the country’s troubled southeastern province of Sirnak.

Police sources, requesting anonymity, said members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fired rockets at the vehicle as it was traveling in an area of the provincial capital city of Sirnak, situated some 1,000 kilometers (621 miles) east of the capital, Ankara, late on Monday.

The sources added that one police officer died on the site while another succumbed to his wounds later at Sirnak Public Hospital. Ten other policemen are now receiving treatment at the medical facility.

Separately, Turkish troops backed by gendarmerie forces conducted a string of counter-terrorism operations in Diyarbakir Province on Monday evening. A soldier was severely wounded when PKK terrorists opened fire on the security forces. He later died at Diyarbakir Military Hospital.

A man stands in the room of a house after it was hit by a mortar shell during clashes between Turkish police and PKK militants in the Sur district of Diyarbakir Province, Turkey, January 3, 2016. (Photo by AFP)

Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the past few months. The Turkish military has also been conducting offensives against the positions of the group in northern Iraq.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly bombing in July 2015 in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, in turn prompting the Turkish military operations.

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