3 Turkish soldiers killed in PKK militant attack

Three Turkish police officers were killed and several others injured Friday when militants of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) carried out an attack in Turkey’s troubled eastern province of Tunceli.

Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the assault was carried out at about 10:00 a.m. local time (0800 GMT), when the militants detonated an improvised explosive device on the side of a road linking the provincial capital city of Tunceli and Elazig as an armored personnel carrier was passing by.

The attack prompted a swift response from the Turkish army, with reinforcements and attack helicopters dispatched to the area.

The military aircraft dropped bombs on the militants’ escape routes in the region, and ground forces launched a widespread search operation to arrest the assailants.

A ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015 and attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

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 and Syria.

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

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

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