Turkish air strikes hit 17 Kurdish militant targets, military says

Also Monday, Kurdish rebels in the southeastern province of Sirnak fired at a helicopter carrying conscripts who either had finished their term of duty or were taking leave, killing one of them and injuring another, the military said.

But the pro-PKK Firat news agency said two of those killed in Agri were teenagers aged 15 and 16 who were working at a bakery when Turkish security forces opened fire on nearby buildings.

The PKK claimed responsibility for Monday’s suicide bombing and a subsequent armed attack on a police station in the Sultanbeyli district of Istanbul.

The outlawed Marxist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) – which the government has on occasion linked to the PKK – claimed another attack in Istanbul, a shooting on the US consulate, which caused no casualties.

One soldier died of his wounds in hospital while five others were injured, the army said, when militants launched an attack with guns and rockets on the command post in the village of Ozekli.

While Turkish politics has long had an opaque veneer that has resulted in a political spectrum rife with conspiracy theories, Ankara can’t allow itself to become embroiled in a new war with the PKK as the much greater menace of ISIL continues to gain strength just beyond the border in Syria.

The PKK has been preventing for Kurdish autonomy in southeast Turkey.

By largely focusing on the PKK – both in Iraq and at home – Ankara has raised suspicions among Kurds that its real agenda is to check Kurdish territorial ambitions rather than battle hardline Islamists.

Well, the DHKP-C is a far-leftist group that has claimed responsibility in the past for attacks on U.S. interests.

On Sunday, the U.S. military announced that a detachment of six F-16 fighter jets have arrived at Turkey’s southern Incirlik Air Base to join the fight against IS militants.

He added that the over two-week air campaign against the PKK had already inflicted “serious losses” on the group. In 2008, an attack blamed on al-Qaida-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead. “The PKK remains on the EU’s list of terrorist organisations and EU Member States have also acted robustly against the group”.

As of recent, peace negotiations between the Turkish government and the PKK have been derailed.

Ankara additionally granted permission to the U.S.to make use of Turkish airbases as a part of its bombardment marketing campaign towards the Islamic State.

“Everybody is focused on the ISIL threat inside Syria, and Turkey has said themselves that that’s where the locus of their energy is going to be applied”.