Tag Archives: Turkey

Nine soldiers were killed after their tank and an armored personnel carrier were hit in an IED attack in the province of Diyarbakir. Police detained two female suicide bombers after failed attacks in Ankara. The incidents are blamed on the Kurdistan Workers Party.

Security forces detained 50 Islamists during raids in the southern provinces of Osmaniye, Gaziantep, Adana, and Sanliurfa. Among those captured was Shahmeran Sari, the leader of the Turkish Islamist movement Vasat. Sari is thought to have ordered operations inside Turkey.

Police detained 37 al Qaeda suspects thought to be plotting attacks on foreign targets in Turkey. The raids took place in the provinces of Gaziantep, Sanliurfa, Konya, and Adana. Today’s raid follows the detention of seven other al Qaeda suspects in Eskisehir earlier this month.

Security forces detained 15 al Qaeda suspects during multiple raids in the capital of Istanbul. More raids are expected. Turkey also charged two suspected al Qaeda members for complicity in the attack on the US consulate in Istanbul in July that killed three police officers.

Fifteen Turkish soldiers and 23 fighters from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed in a major clash in the town of Semdinli in the southeastern province of Hakkari near the Iraqi border. The two day battle began after PKK terrorists ambushed Turkish troops.

Sixteen Turks, many of them police and soldiers, were wounded in a car bombing in the western city of Izmir. Turkish forces shelled Kurdistan Workers Party positions in northern Iraq; no casualties have been reported.

Kurdish rebels threatened to stage more attacks on economic targets in Turkey only days after claiming responsibility for a fire at a key oil pipeline. The fire on the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline is still burning in eastern Turkey and repairs may take one to two weeks or longer to repair.

Turkish warplanes bombed a cave in northern Iraq where fighters in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were sheltering. “Many of the terrorists outside the cave and an unknown number of others inside were neutralized,” the military stated. The PKK claimed there were no casualties.

At least 15 people were killed and 154 injured in a dual bomb attack in Istanbul. The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is the prime suspect. The Turkish military struck 12 PKK positions in northern Iraq.