5 soldiers, 2 officers killed in weekend terror attacks

GAZİANTEP/MARDİN

Terror attacks in two seperate Turkish provinces in the southeast killed five soldiers and two police officers over the weekend.

Two police officers were killed in a bomb attack on a police headquarters in the southeastern province of Gaziantep on the morning of May 1, Gov. Ali Yerlikaya has confirmed. 

At least 18 policemen and four civilians were injured in the suspected car bomb attack that was carried out around 9:20 a.m. 

Private broadcaster CNNTürk reported that the blast occurred in front of the barriers of the headquarters.

Two cars entered the area in front of the headquarters and started firing with automatic weapons, with police responding to the attack, reported daily Hürriyet. 

One of the cars managed to escape, while the second car exploded, according to reports. The police have begun a search to apprehend the other car involved in the attack. 

Footage from a CNNTürk broadcast showed pieces of a wrecked vehicle near the station’s gates, several ambulances and fire brigade trucks at the scene of the blast, which it said was felt from kilometers away.

The wounded were taken to a hospital, where one police officer succumbed to his injuries.

Security measures were increased in front of the aforementioned hospital.

Armored police teams and ambulances were sent to the area, as buildings surrounding the station were evacuated by the police after the attack. 

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said investigations into the attack are ongoing.

“We’ve reached significant information, but the Interior Ministry will make the necessary statement in due course,” Davutoğlu said.

President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan has received information about the attack from Interior Minister Efkan Ala and spoken on the phone with Governor Ali Yerlikaya, according to presidential sources. 

Meanwhile, four Turkish soldiers were killed and 14 were wounded on separate May 1 attacks by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in the southeastern provinces of Mardin and Şırnak, according to reports. 

Three soldiers were killed and 14 were wounded during a military operation in the Nusaybin district of the southeastern province of Mardin, the Turkish Armed Forces said in a statement. 

The attack in the town, where a number of neighborhoods are under curfew and operations have been ongoing since March 14, came as the soldiers were detonating a bomb placed by the militants on Nusaybin’s Çağçağ Street. 

Three soldiers, identified as gendarmerie specialized sergeants Serdar Yıldırım, Sinan Oruç and Hakan Duygal, were killed in the attack, according to the official statement by the Chief of Staff.

The wounded soldiers were brought to state hospitals in Nusaybin and central Mardin, according to reports.
In a separate attack on the same day, a soldier was heavily wounded after being hit by a PKK sniper during an operation in Şırnak’s İsmetpaşa neighborhood. 

The injured soldier, whose identity was yet to be disclosed when Hürriyet Daily News went to press, was promptly transferred with an armored ambulance to Şırnak State Hospital, where he later succumbed to his wounds. 

The attack came one day after the army announced that an army captain was shot dead by a PKK sniper in Nusaybin.

Captain Alper Kalem was wounded in clashes that erupted when a group of soldiers were trying to remove bombs on the streets at 7 a.m. local time on April 30.

Kalem was taken to hospital but later succumbed to his wounds.

Meanwhile, in the same neighborhood two police officers and one soldier were injured in a rocket attack on an armored vehicle.

Early on April 30, the military had stated that Turkish warplanes destroyed PKK targets in northern Iraq.

It said four F-16 and 14 F-4 jets carried out the raids on positions in Kandil, Hakkurk and Avasin between 23:00 p.m. and 1:40 a.m. local time.

It added that a pair of F-4 warplanes also carried out two airstrikes on PKK bases in the rural Güneycam area of the southeastern Turkish province of Şırnak.