ANKARA: An improvised bomb attack on a military vehicle killed two soldiers in southeast Turkey on Saturday, with state media blaming Kurdish separatists.
The blast came in the province of Batman, according to the Anadolu news agency, which said the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) was behind the attack.
Turkey was already in mourning on Saturday for a 15-year-old killed by PKK militants on Friday in the northeastern city of Trabzon.
Kurdish-dominated southeast Turkey has been hit by near-daily violence since the conflict between the PKK and the government flared up in 2015, ending a fragile cease-fire.
The PKK, which has waged an insurgency inside Turkey since 1984, is classed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and the US.
Also on Saturday, police arrested three men suspected of carrying out murders on behalf of Daesh.
Police conducted simultaneous operations in the southeastern provinces of Sanliurfa and Gaziantep as well as eastern Malatya province.
Polcie said the three men were thought to have been part of a “Daesh execution team.”
The counter-terror operations followed an investigation into a drive-by shooting of a Syrian national in Sanliurfa last month. The gun used in that attack was found on the suspects.
The suspects used chats in phone gaming applications to communicate with Daesh members, according to private Dogan news agency.
The men were thought to have been planning attacks on people working against Daesh.
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Kurdish separatists blamed for killing of soldiers
Kurdish separatists blamed for killing of soldiers
Turkiye holds military funeral for Libyan officers killed in plane crash
ANKARA: Turkiye held a military funeral ceremony Sunday morning for five Libyan officers, including western Libya’s military chief, who died in a plane crash earlier this week.
The private jet with Gen. Muhammad Ali Ahmad Al-Haddad, four other military officers and three crew members crashed on Tuesday after taking off from Ankara, Turkiye’s capital, killing everyone on board. Libyan officials said the cause of the crash was a technical malfunction on the plane.
Al-Hadad was the top military commander in western Libya and played a crucial role in the ongoing, UN-brokered efforts to unify Libya’s military.
The high-level Libyan delegation was on its way back to Tripoli, Libya’s capital, after holding defense talks in Ankara aimed at boosting military cooperation between the two countries.
Sunday’s ceremony was held at 8:00 a.m. local time at the Murted Airfield base, near Ankara, and attended by the Turkish military chief and the defense minister. The five caskets wrapped in their national flag were then loaded onto a plane to be returned to Libya.
The bodies recovered from the crash site were kept at the Ankara Forensic Medicine Institute for identification. Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told reporters their DNA was compared to family members who joined a 22-person delegation that arrived from Libya after the crash.
Tunc also said Germany was asked to help examine the jet’s black boxes as an impartial third party
Libya plunged into chaos after the country’s 2011 uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi. The country split, with rival administrations in the east and west, backed by an array of rogue militias and different foreign governments.
Turkiye has been the main backer of Libya’s government in the west, but has recently taken steps to improve ties with the eastern-based government as well.
The private jet with Gen. Muhammad Ali Ahmad Al-Haddad, four other military officers and three crew members crashed on Tuesday after taking off from Ankara, Turkiye’s capital, killing everyone on board. Libyan officials said the cause of the crash was a technical malfunction on the plane.
Al-Hadad was the top military commander in western Libya and played a crucial role in the ongoing, UN-brokered efforts to unify Libya’s military.
The high-level Libyan delegation was on its way back to Tripoli, Libya’s capital, after holding defense talks in Ankara aimed at boosting military cooperation between the two countries.
Sunday’s ceremony was held at 8:00 a.m. local time at the Murted Airfield base, near Ankara, and attended by the Turkish military chief and the defense minister. The five caskets wrapped in their national flag were then loaded onto a plane to be returned to Libya.
The bodies recovered from the crash site were kept at the Ankara Forensic Medicine Institute for identification. Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunc told reporters their DNA was compared to family members who joined a 22-person delegation that arrived from Libya after the crash.
Tunc also said Germany was asked to help examine the jet’s black boxes as an impartial third party
Libya plunged into chaos after the country’s 2011 uprising toppled and killed longtime dictator Muammar Qaddafi. The country split, with rival administrations in the east and west, backed by an array of rogue militias and different foreign governments.
Turkiye has been the main backer of Libya’s government in the west, but has recently taken steps to improve ties with the eastern-based government as well.
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