PKK hijacks truck, seizes explosives: Turkish army

ISTANBUL

Militants from Turkey’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) on Oct. 27 hijacked a truck, seizing 400 kilograms (880 pounds) of the explosive substance ammonium nitrate, the Turkish army has stated.

The incident in Turkey’s southeast comes amid an sudden upsurge in attacks blamed on the Kurdish militant group, including the killing in broad daylight of three off-duty Turkish soldiers at the weekend.

The army said that the latest incident took place at a private coal mine in the Silopi district of Şırnak province close to the border with Iraq.

Having seized the vehicle, the group loaded the explosives onto another truck and then released the driver of the first truck.

The army blamed the incident on the "separatist terror organization," its customary term for the PKK which it never refers to by name.

The upsurge in tensions with the PKK, which until now has largely observed a fragile ceasefire since March 2013, highlight the controversy over the government’s strategy against jihadists in Syria.

Kurdish militants accuse the Turkish government of failing to support Kurdish fighters seeking to prevent the Syrian border town of Kobane from being overrun by jihadists.