Nine people were killed Monday in a shootout between Turkish police officers and Islamic State group militants in Diyarbakir city in southeastern Turkey, according to reports.
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Police were on Monday (local time) raiding several houses in a district where extremists were thought to be hiding, when the militants opening fire on them, Turkish authorities say.
In June, the Kurdish fighters and their Arab rebel allies expelled Islamic State group Jihadists from Tal Abyad after fierce clashes.
But analysts slammed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s assertion that Isis and Kurdish rebels were working together, saying that co-operation was impossible when the groups were at war in Syria and noting that numerous victims were Kurds or supporters of the ethnic group. Many see the claim as a government attempt to deflect blame for the attack which came weeks ahead of Turkey’s November 1 election.
Earlier it was reported that Turkey’s police are looking for four suicide bombers who infiltrated into Turkey from neighboring Syria.
The Dogan news agency said the suspects, including a woman, were being questioned by…
A dozen suspected militants were detained, Kurtulmus said.
Authorities had previously said they were killed by a booby-trap when they entered the property in Kayapinar at around 3.20 p.m. (1220GMT) following a tip-off about Daesh cells preparing attacks. The bombing was blamed on the militant group. More than 100 people were killed when two suicide bombers blew themselves up outside Ankara’s central train station on October 10.
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The second bomber was officially identified last week as Yunus Emre Alagoz, brother of the man suspected of carrying out the July attack in the mainly Kurdish town of Suruc which left 34 people dead.
