Four workers were killed when Kurdish militants detonated a roadside bomb that struck the laborer’s pick-up truck as it passed by in southeastern Turkey on Wednesday, the local governor’s office said, according to Reuters.
The blast occurred in the Silopi district, near the borders with Iraq and Syria, while the vehicle was carrying fuel to be used by workers involved in road construction, the Şırnak Governor’s Office said in a statement.
It said the explosives were planted and detonated by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants.
The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict, focused in southeastern Turkey.
Ankara regularly targets PKK militants, both in its mainly Kurdish Southeast and in northern Iraq, where the group is based.
Turkey has launched a new operation against PKK targets in northern Iraq, with warplanes carrying out airstrikes on militant positions.
A Defense Ministry statement on Thursday said Turkish F-16 jets, drones and howitzers hit and destroyed more than 500 PKK targets in 36 hours, according to Al Jazeera.