(MENAFN- The Journal Of Turkish Weekly) >A Turkish soldier and police officer have been martyred in separate PKK terrorist attacks in southeastern Sirnak province, military and police sources said Monday.
The soldier was seriously injured in an attack in Sirnak’s Uludere district, close to the Iraqi border, before he succumbed to his wounds at the Sirnak State Hospital, according to unnamed military sources, who wished to stay anonymous because they were not authorized to speak with the media.
A police officer also succumbed to his wounds at the Sirnak Military Hospital after he got injured in a separate anti-terror operation against the PKK in Sirnak early Monday, police sources, who wished to stay anonymous because they were not authorized to speak with the media, said.
Also, five village guards and a civilian were injured when a PKK bomb-laden vehicle exploded near a police station in southeastern Diyarbakir province late Sunday, according to the regional governor’s office.
The governor’s office said village guards had tried to stop the bomb-laden vehicle on the Lice-Kulp Highway at 10.15 p.m. local time (1915 GMT) Sunday, but two terrorists, who later escaped from the scene, detonated the explosives, injuring the guards and a civilian.
An operation to catch the fugitives remains ongoing.
The PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S., and EU – resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.
Since then, nearly 500 security personnel, including troops, police officers, and village guards, have been martyred, and over 4,900 PKK terrorists killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.
By Ekrem Payan, Hasan Namli, Ahmet Kaplan and Soner Kilinc