ANKARA: Twelve people were killed in a spate of bombings against Turkish security forces blamed on Kurdish rebels who appear to have ramped up their campaign of attacks in the aftermath of the failed coup.
Turkish officials accused the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of carrying out three bloody attacks in less than 24 hours that for the first time struck areas in the east that are not predominantly Kurdish.
“This nation will never surrender to any terrorist organization,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Thursday on a visit to the scene of one of the bombings.
The bloodshed comes in the week that the PKK — regarded as a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western allies — marks what is considered to be the 32nd anniversary of its armed rebellion against the Turkish state.
In the deadliest strike, five soldiers and a village guard were killed when a homemade bomb blew up in the path of a military convoy in the southeastern town of Bitlis on Thursday, Turkish media reported.
Just a few hours earlier, three police officers were killed and more than 200 people injured in a car bombing against police headquarters in the eastern city of Elazig, leaving the building largely in ruins.
The city, a conservative nationalist bastion, had been spared much of the violence that has rocked the Kurdish-dominated southeast since a two-and-a-half year cease-fire collapsed in 2015.
And on Wednesday night, two more policemen and a civilian were killed and dozens wounded in a similar attack in the city of Van, not far from the border with Iran. The rebels appear to have intensified their attacks since the failed attempt on July 15 to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
One senior Turkish politician suggested that the PKK was collaborating with supporters of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of orchestrating the coup bid.
“Once again, the attacks in Van and Elazig show how PKK and FETO work together,” former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu wrote on Twitter.
“We will thwart the PKK like we thwarted FETO (Fethullah Terrorist Organization),” Defense Minister Fikri Isik said.
Yildirim, who visited the scene of the attack in Elizag along with several ministers including Isik and army chief Hulusi Akar, said a total of 217 people had been injured, including police and civilians.
A Turkish official said more than 70 civilians and police officers were also wounded in the attack in Van, which has a mixed ethnic Kurdish and Turkish population.
Turkish officials accused the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) of carrying out three bloody attacks in less than 24 hours that for the first time struck areas in the east that are not predominantly Kurdish.
“This nation will never surrender to any terrorist organization,” Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Thursday on a visit to the scene of one of the bombings.
The bloodshed comes in the week that the PKK — regarded as a terrorist organization by Ankara and its Western allies — marks what is considered to be the 32nd anniversary of its armed rebellion against the Turkish state.
In the deadliest strike, five soldiers and a village guard were killed when a homemade bomb blew up in the path of a military convoy in the southeastern town of Bitlis on Thursday, Turkish media reported.
Just a few hours earlier, three police officers were killed and more than 200 people injured in a car bombing against police headquarters in the eastern city of Elazig, leaving the building largely in ruins.
The city, a conservative nationalist bastion, had been spared much of the violence that has rocked the Kurdish-dominated southeast since a two-and-a-half year cease-fire collapsed in 2015.
And on Wednesday night, two more policemen and a civilian were killed and dozens wounded in a similar attack in the city of Van, not far from the border with Iran. The rebels appear to have intensified their attacks since the failed attempt on July 15 to overthrow President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
One senior Turkish politician suggested that the PKK was collaborating with supporters of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen, accused by Ankara of orchestrating the coup bid.
“Once again, the attacks in Van and Elazig show how PKK and FETO work together,” former prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu wrote on Twitter.
“We will thwart the PKK like we thwarted FETO (Fethullah Terrorist Organization),” Defense Minister Fikri Isik said.
Yildirim, who visited the scene of the attack in Elizag along with several ministers including Isik and army chief Hulusi Akar, said a total of 217 people had been injured, including police and civilians.
A Turkish official said more than 70 civilians and police officers were also wounded in the attack in Van, which has a mixed ethnic Kurdish and Turkish population.
