Turkish soldiers die in attack a day after Ankara explosion
Source: cnn.com
Six soldiers were killed and another was wounded Thursday in a roadside bombing that hit an armored military vehicle in the southeastern Turkish province of Diyarbakir, Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported, citing the Turkish General Staff.
Turkey blamed the attack on the PKK -- a Kurdish separatist group that Turkey, the United States and the European Union have designated as a terror organization. Turkey has been battling the PKK for decades.
The attack on the soldiers was the second deadly blast in two days on Turkish soil that Ankara has attributed to Kurdish groups.
On Wednesday, at least 28 people were killed and 61 injured in an explosion targeting military vehicles in central Ankara.
Ankara says the attack was jointly carried out by a member of the YPG, the Kurdish fighting force in Syria, and PKK members based in Turkey, according to Anadolu.
"It has been revealed that a YPG member who infiltrated from Syria with members of the separatist terror organization conducted this attack," Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, identifying the YPG member as Syrian-born Saleh Najar.
Turkey responded to the Ankara blast with airstrikes in northern Iraq on Wednesday night targeting the PKK, which it says is affiliated with YPG.
The YPG is the 30,000-strong armed wing of the PYD, the main Kurdish political actor in Syria, and receives backing from the United States as a key partner in the fight against ISIS. Turkey considers it a terror group and indistinguishable from the PKK.
The Turkish General Staff said that 60 to 70 people, including some of the PKK's top figures, were targeted Wednesday night in northern Iraq's Haftanin region close to Turkish border, according to Anadolu. Northern Iraq is home to the majority of that country's Kurdish population.
The Kurds, an ethnic minority spread in the intersecting parts of Turkey, Syria, Iran and Iraq, have long sought an independent state.
Turkish President points to Kurdish groups
There has been no reported claim of responsibility for the Ankara bombing, and the PYD, YPG and PKK have all denied involvement.
A top PKK leader, Cemil Bayik, said his organization did not know who carried out the bombing.
"We know there are people who have conducted such acts before as retaliation of massacres in Kurdistan," Bayik said in an interview with the PKK-affiliated Firat News Agency. "Those who conducted the attack will probably announce why soon."
But in comments that Anadolu reported Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan rejected the denials, saying evidence provided by Turkey's Interior Ministry pointed to the Kurdish groups.
Fourteen people had been arrested in connection with the Ankara bombing, he said, adding the number was likely to rise, according to Anadolu.
"The Ankara bomb indicates that Turkey's (military) operation yields serious results in face of recent terror," he said, according to the agency.
Turkey has been shelling YPG positions in northern Syria recently, targeting the group around Azaz in Aleppo province amid an uptick in Kurdish military gains in the region.
Ankara has said the bombardment was a response to shelling from YPG positions.
Read the rest: cnn.com
