Five soldiers and a police officer were killed when militants from the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) detonated explosives they planted inside a building in the Nusaybin district of Mardin on Saturday.
The private Doğan news agency said the explosion took place in the Dicle neighborhood as Turkish security forces were carrying out operations against the PKK in district, which has been under curfew since March 14.
A group of terrorists reportedly remotely detonated explosives they had planted when security forces entered a building to capture PKK members. The powerful explosion caused the building to collapse, killing five soldiers and a special operations policeman.
Turkish security forces have been trying to clear southeastern towns and cities of PKK terrorists since last July, when a two-year cease-fire with the group collapsed, shattering a settlement process launched by the government in late 2012 to end Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish problem, and triggering the worst violence seen in the region in two decades.