Turkey bombs PKK targets

ISTANBUL: Turkish warplanes on Tuesday carried out a new wave of air strikes against Kurdish militants in the southeast of the country in retaliation for a day of bloody attacks that left six members of the security forces dead.
The military bombed 17 targets of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the southeastern Hakkari province, destroying them all, the army said in a statement.
The new wave of strikes carried out overnight came after one of the bloodiest days of attacks in the country since Turkey launched a relentless bombing campaign against PKK targets late last month. Ankara is pressing a two-pronged “anti-terror” offensive against Islamic State (IS) Jihadists in Syria and PKK militants in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey following a wave of attacks in the country.
But, so far, the air strikes have overwhelmingly concentrated on the separatist Kurdish rebels who have responded by tearing up a 2013 ceasefire and waging a bloody campaign against the security forces.
On Monday, four Turkish police officers were killed in a roadside bombing in the southeastern Sirnak province while a Turkish soldier was killed in a rocket attack on a military helicopter.
Meanwhile, in Istanbul a senior police officer in charge of the city’s bomb disposal department was killed in clashes that followed a pre-dawn suicide bombing.
While the government blamed the PKK for that attack, it was also claimed by a small leftist group, the People’s Defence Units (HSB), on its Twitter feed. The outlawed Marxist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) — which the government has on occasion linked to the PKK — claimed another attack in Istanbul, a shooting on the US consulate, which caused no casualties.
In new violence overnight, a Turkish soldier was killed in a gun attack on a military post in Sirnak, also blamed on the PKK.
According to an AFP toll, 29 members of the security forces have been killed in violence linked to the PKK since the current crisis began. The European Union and United States, which like Turkey list the PKK as a terror group, have backed Ankara’s right to strike against the militants but also indicated a degree of concern about the magnitude of the campaign.