Istanbul police target PKK-linked addresses in dawn raid

[Anthea]

Daily Sabah

Istanbul anti-terror police target PKK-linked addresses in dawn raid

Counter terrorism teams of the Istanbul Police Department have raided various addresses linked to the PKK terror organization in Istanbul's Esenyurt district at around 05:00 am on Sunday.

The detained suspects were interrogated after being held for medical inspection at the Haseki Training and Research Hospital.

Meanwhile, a Turkish soldier was killed and another soldier was injured after a mine, planted by the PKK terror organization, exploded early Sunday in Turkey's south-eastern Kars province.

The injured soldier was immediately taken to the Kars state hospital for medical treatment.

In a statement on its website, the Turkish Armed Forces said the clash happened at 5.30 a.m. local time (0230GMT). The soldiers called on the insurgents to surrender but were fired upon. The military said the fatal army casualty died from his wounds in hospital.

Saturday marked the 31st anniversary of the start of the armed conflict between PKK terrorists and Turkish army.

Authorities in the town of Varto in Muş province ordered a total curfew, worried that the PKK had laid explosives there to coincide with the anniversary.

The flare-up in violence has killed 43 members of the security forces, according to the government. Turkish media have put the PKK's death toll at more than 200.

In Diyarbakır, in southern Turkey, police seized improvised explosives and Molotov cocktails in an operation on Saturday evening against the suspected members of the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H), the youth wing of the PKK that is active in Turkey's cities. A suspected YDG-H member was arrested.

In a separate incident, a police officer was injured in an explosives attack on the offices of the Justice and Development (AK) Party in the city later on Saturday.

Police sources told Anadolu Agency that two devices were thrown at the building, one of which detonated, wounding the officer.

Muhammed Akar, the party's provincial chairman, visited the officer in hospital before he was discharged from the hospital.

http://www.dailysabah.com/nation/2015/0 ... -dawn-raid

[Anthea]

Turkey Declares Curfew in Southeastern Town as PKK Attacks Surge

Turkish authorities declared an open-ended curfew in the southeastern town of Varto on Sunday, the first such restriction since clashes with autonomy-seeking Kurdish militants flared last month.

The curfew was imposed at 8:30 a.m. after the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, destroyed a bridge at the town’s entrance late Saturday. The militant group has expanded its fight from rugged mountains to towns and cities in the southeast, and more than 150 people, including 13 civilians, have died in clashes since early July.

“The PKK terrorist organization has planted several mines and booby traps in the center of town of Varto since Aug. 15,” the governor’s office in the provincial center of Mus said in a statement on its website. “A curfew has been declared in Varto until further notice to allow us to defuse these explosives and safeguard our people and property.”

The date has resonance as the 31st anniversary of the group’s first armed assault.

Tensions between the government and minority Kurds escalated after the pro-Kurdish HDP party won seats in parliament for the first time, stripping the ruling AK Party of its majority to govern alone. Turkey is now headed to a second general election within six months after coalition talks collapsed last week.

The government accused HDP of ties to the PKK and ordered airstrikes against militant hideouts in Turkey and neighboring Iraq in response to attacks on soldiers and policemen. The search for a peaceful solution to the conflict, undertaken by the government three years ago, has been suspended amid growing nationalist backlash.

The PKK took up arms for autonomy in Turkey’s southeast in 1984. The fighting has claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people and cost hundreds of billions of dollars, according to government figures.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... acks-surge