Five Turkish soldiers and one special forces police officer have died in a bomb attack in the country’s southeastern Mardin Province, reports say.
Turkey’s Dogan news agency said Kurdish rebel group the PKK was responsible.
The victims were said to be taking part in an anti-PKK military operation in the city of Nusaybin, which has been under curfew since mid-March, BBC reported.
Authorities say the PKK has dug trenches and put up barricades around Nusaybin.
The attack comes just two days after seven police officers were killed and 27 others wounded in a car bomb attack on a police bus in the main southeastern city of Diyarbakir.
Turkish authorities on Saturday said they had detained the suspected perpetrator of the Diyarbakir bomb, which was claimed by the military wing of the PKK.
According to Dogan, the suspect—named as AC—is believed to be a man seen walking away from a white parked car which would later be detonated as the police bus passed. Nine others suspected of links to the attacks were detained on Friday prior to AC’s arrest, Dogan reported.
In other violence blamed on the PKK overnight, one civilian was killed and 18 people wounded in an attack on a military substation in the Kiziltepe district of Mardin province, the army said.
The PKK formally took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, seeking independence for Turkey’s largest minority group.
A truce was reached in March 2013 but it collapsed last summer, when the government resumed a drive to eradicate the group in a relentless military campaign.
CAPTION:
Seven policemen were killed when a car bomb was detonated next to a police bus.
