Seven village guards, two soldiers and one civilian were killed and three soldiers and two civilians wounded in what appears to be an attack launched by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in Doğubayazıt, a town in the eastern province of Ağrı, near the Iranian border.
PKK militants launched an attack on a team of village guards and soldiers as they were on watch near a military post.
Clashes between Turkish security forces and PKK militants have intensified in recent weeks, especially after Turkey entered Syria to curb the expansion of Syrian Kurdish militias there, apart from its primary objective of clearing both sides of the border of terrorist Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) elements.
The PKK vowed to increase its attacks against Turkey after the Syria incursion. Kurdish militia the People’s Protection Units (YPG) is a Syrian offshoot of the PKK, which is fighting the Turkish state for an autonomous zone in Turkey’s Southeast.