PKK Suicide Bombing Kills 2 Soldiers, Injures Dozens In Ağrı

The terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) continued its recent wave of attacks on members of the Turkish security forces over the weekend, killing two soldiers and wounding dozens of others in a suicide attack in the eastern province of Ağrı on Sunday.

In the early hours of Sunday a PKK terrorist carried out a suicide attack using a tractor loaded with two tons of explosives, targeting a gendarmerie outpost close to the border with Iran in the Doğubeyazıt district of Ağrı, the provincial governor's office and the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) have announced. Two soldiers -- Medet Mat and Mansur Cengiz -- were killed along with the suicide bomber, while 31 soldiers were wounded.
Four of the injured are in serious condition and have been taken to a military hospital in Erzurum for further treatment, according to the TSK. A number of villagers were also injured due to shrapnel being scattered for hundreds of meters. Some villagers told news outlets that they thought the noise of the explosions was an earthquake.

In its statement, the TSK said it strongly condemns the “heinous” attack perpetrated by “murderers who have nothing to do with humanity,” while it offered its condolences over the deaths of the soldiers.
In another incident, a military vehicle was hit by a landmine close to a pipeline owned by the state-owned Turkish Pipeline Corporation (BOTAŞ) in the southeastern province of Mardin late on Saturday night, leading to the death of one soldier with seven others being wounded. The Mardin Governor's Office released a written statement after the attack, saying a landmine that had been planted by members of the PKK had exploded at around 10 p.m. on Saturday. An investigation has been launched into the incident and the search for the assailants is still ongoing, the governor's office said.

The body of the slain soldier, Pvt. Barış Akdabak, was sent to his hometown of Antalya for burial following a funeral ceremony in Diyarbakır on Sunday.

In an incident in the Kağızman district of Kars province on Saturday, gendarmerie Spc. Sgt. Ali Gökçe was killed when he stepped on a landmine planted by the PKK. Gökçe's body was sent to his hometown of Osmaniye for burial after a funeral ceremony at the Kars Provincial Gendarmerie Command on Sunday.

There were also clashes in other parts of the region between PKK terrorists and Turkish security forces as well as operations against suspected PKK members over the weekend. In Van's Çatak district, four people including pro-Kurdish Democratic Regions Party's (DBP) Çatak district head Vehbi Batur were detained in an operation against the PKK. On Friday PKK terrorists attacked a gendarmerie outpost and a police station in Çatak. The police launched an operation against the assailants following the attack.

In a similar development, the co-mayor of the southeastern town of Lice was sent to jail pending trial on charges of terrorism, according to a news report on Sunday. Harun Erkuş, a politician representing the DBP, was detained on July 30 along with five others in Lice, a district of Diyarbakır province, as part of sweeping police operations across Turkey against terrorist groups including the PKK, the Doğan news agency has said. Doğan said Erkuş and another suspect, Abdullah Hocaoğlu, were sent to a Diyarbakır prison while the remaining four suspects were released.

There was also an operation against the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) -- the youth wing of the PKK -- in Şırnak province's Cizre district, as a part of which police raided a number of houses in the Nur neighborhood. The operations were launched after masked YDG-H members started to block roads and attack the security forces over the past two weeks.

In another incident, a clash erupted between security forces and a group of PKK terrorists near the village of Günyüzü in Gümüşhane province's Kürtün district.
More than 1,300 people were detained in police operations against the PKK, the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and the radical leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army/Front (DHKP/C) late in July. An overwhelming majority of the detained are persons suspected of having links with the PKK.