Six police officers were injured when explosives planted by the members of the terrorist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) were exploded on the Mardin-Diyarbakır road on Saturday. Two of the police officers were reportedly in critical condition.
The explosion took place near Mazıdağı district of Mardin as an armored police vehicle was passing from the area.
Ambulances from Mardin and Diyarbakır were immediately sent to the site of the explosion to pick up the injured police officers. The police officers were taken to nearby hospitals.
A settlement process launched by the Justice and Development Party (AK Party) government in late 2012 to end Turkey’s long-standing Kurdish problem collapsed following a two-year-cease-fire last July, triggering the worst violence in Turkey’s southeast since 1990s. Hundreds of civilians, security forces’ members as well as PKK terrorists have been killed in the region in the renewed conflict over the past months.
In another development, Turkish warplanes began to bomb PKK targets in Haftanin and Metina regions in northern Iraq beginning in the early hours of Saturday into Saturday morning.
The operations were reportedly launched based on intelligence about PKK activity in region.