ANKARA: Kurdish militants on Wednesday claimed the murder of two Turkish police officers as revenge for a deadly suicide bombing near the Syrian border blamed on Daesh that killed 32 activists.

The attack by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) militants in the town of Ceylanpinar intensified fears that the fighting raging in Syria between Kurds and Daesh extremists was spilling over onto Turkish territory.

In Ankara, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu convened his Cabinet to discuss an action plan for strengthening security on Turkey’s border with Syria after Monday’s devastating attack in the town of Suruc.

Officials said the suicide bomber had been identified as a 20-year old Turkish student who had been in contact with Daesh for several months. The authorities had earlier appeared at a loss to explain the shooting dead in the head of the two police at their shared home at a block of flats in Ceylanpinar.

But the military wing of the PKK — outlawed as a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies — said it had carried out the attack as a reprisal. “A punitive action was carried out... in revenge for the massacre in Suruc,” the People’s Defense Forces (HPG) said in a statement on its website, accusing the two officers of cooperating with IS.

It described the attackers as an “Apoist team of self-sacrifice,” in reference to the PKK’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan whose nickname is “Apo” or “uncle.”

Media reports had said the man — a university student identified by his initials S.A.A. — had first become involved with Daesh militants two months ago.