PKK bomb attack injures 17 soldiers in SE Turkey

This file photo shows Turkish soldiers standing guard near the Turkish-Syrian border. (Photo by AFP)

More than a dozen Turkish soldiers have sustained injuries in a roadside bomb explosion that targeted their military vehicle in Turkey’s southeastern and Kurdish-populated province of Hakkari.

The Turkish General Staff said in a statement on Monday that militants of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) detonated an improvised explosive device as the vehicle was passing through the Yuksekova district of the province, located 1,026 kilometers (638 miles) east of the capital Ankara. 

The statement added that the wounded soldiers were taken to a nearby hospital for treatment. Hospital sources said none of the troopers is in critical condition.

The development came less than a week after Turkish fighter jets struck an area in the Dargecit district of the southeastern province of Mardin, killing eight PKK militants who were preparing to launch an attack on Turkish soldiers.

Separately, Turkish warplanes conducted air raids against areas near the border with Iraq and Iran on July 11, leaving three PKK members dead.

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK, which has been calling for an autonomous Kurdish region since 1984, and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015. Attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

Over the past few months, Turkish ground and air forces have been carrying out operations against the PKK positions in the country’s troubled southeastern border region as well as northern Iraq and Syria.

Turkey has declared the PKK a terrorist organization. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict over the past few decades.