Turkish army airstrike, soldiers kill 13 Kurdish PKK militants
More than a dozen members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) have been killed after Turkish military aircraft and army soldiers carried out a raft of counter-terrorism operations against the Kurdish militants in Turkey’s southeastern provinces of Hakkari and Van.
The Turkish General Staff, in a statement released on Friday, announced that air force fighter jets launched two aerial attacks against the mountainous Daglica area of Hakkari Province, located 1,026 kilometers (638 miles) east of the capital, Ankara, earlier in the day, killing ten PKK members in the process.
Separately, three PKK militants were killed during a raid in the Ipekyolu district of Van Province.
Security authorities, speaking on condition of anonymity, said counter-terrorism police and intelligence units mounted an offensive against a house in the Hacibekir neighborhood of the area, where militants had holed up and were preparing an attack.
A fierce exchange of gunfire broke out, when PKK members responded with fire to security forces’ call for surrender. Three PKK militants were killed in clashes, while four others sustained injuries and managed to flee to a forested area near the scene.
A shaky 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 PKK positions 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 Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of supposed reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.
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