PKK kills 2 police officers in eastern Turkey

Two police officers lost their lives following a terrorist PKK attack in eastern Turkey over the weekend. A police officer died after sustaining gunshot wounds in Friday's clashes between security forces and members of the outlawed PKK in the Silopi district of southeastern Şırnak province. On Friday, three people were killed and seven wounded, including two police officers, in clashes in Silopi. Officer Muhammed Onur Demir died on Saturday at the district hospital. On the same day, a suspicious vehicle opened fire in the southeastern province of Mardin, leaving one police officer dead and one severely injured, according to local sources. The violent attack took place on Cumhuriyet Boulevard in Midyat at around 9:30 p.m. when a police patrol squad car became suspicious of a vehicle in traffic. As the suspicious car slowed down, the undercover police vehicle was raked by fire from long-barreled guns, and the attackers heavily injured two officers. Operations against PKK militants is also continuing, as five militants from the PKK's youth group, the Patriotic Democratic Youth Movement (YDGH), were arrested in simultaneous operations organized by police forces in the southeastern province of Şanlıurfa's Siverek district on Sunday. An anonymous source from the security forces claimed that nearly 400 PKK militants have been killed and around 390 have been wounded in the last two weeks of Turkish airstrikes on positions in northern Iraq.

Since a suicide bombing in Suruç in southern Turkey killed 32 people on July 20, the country has witnessed a wave of bombings, shootings and arrests.

The PKK organization was damaged on Aug. 1 during a Turkish air operation against its camps in the Qandil Mountains in northern Iraq. In another air operation in the Bokriskan region of Iraq, the PKK's Şehit Dilan battalion's commander and four group leaders were killed and 30 militants injured. A strike against Zergele camp in the Qandil region saw more than 20 PKK members, including the head of the women's branch of the organization, code named Gülten. In Enze, buildings used as PKK headquarters were destroyed, and almost 30 female militants were killed.