ISIL militant surrenders in Turkey as PKK opens harassing fire near border

ŞIRNAK - ŞANLIURFA

File photo

Turkey's General Staff has announced that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) opened fire with an anti-aircraft gun in Şırnak, while a suspected member of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) surrendered with his weapons in Şanlıurfa, another southeastern Turkish province.

According to the statement posted on the General Staff's website, the PKK militants opened "harassing fire" at two military bases and one military team with a DShK heavy machine gun in the Uludere district of Şırnak near Turkey's border with Iraq on Feb. 6. 

The attacks halted after Turkish soldiers returned fire, the statement added, while also noting that a PKK member surrendered to security forces in the same district.

In a separate incident on the same day, an ISIL member surrendered with his AK-47 assault rifle in the Suruç district of Şanlıurfa, near Turkey's border with Syria.

Five suspected members of ISIL have been captured in the southeastern Turkish province of Gaziantep over the past week. The alleged ISIL members were seized during security forces road inspections. 

A Turkish citizen, on the other hand, had been arrested for being a member of ISIL for the first time in Turkey last month.