The casualties came in simultaneous attacks on a gendarmerie command post and a police station in the town of Nazimiye, a police source said on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media. When bomb disposal experts were examining the improvised explosive device, PKK extremists opened fire on them, injuring a lieutenant and a soldier, the source said.
Advertisement
The Turkish army has also been conducting ground operations as well as airstrikes against PKK positions in the troubled southeastern border region as well as Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region over the past months.
The roadside bomb planted by the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) was detonated as the military vehicle passed through a highway in Viransehir district of southern Sanliurfa, Xinhua news agency reported.
The PKK claimed responsibility for a suicide auto bomb attack targeting a police station in the eastern Turkish city of Elazig last Thursday that killed three officers.
Advertisement
It was an escalation of violence in southeastern Turkey that officials blamed on PKK militants, who Turkey, the United States and European Union label as a terrorist organization.
