Turkish soldiers, PKK militants die in clashes after latest bombing

By Natalie Huet

Eight Turkish soldiers and 21 militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) were killed on Friday (May 13), according to the military and media reports, a day after yet another explosion rocked the country’s mainly Kurdish southeast.

Four suspected bomb makers were killed and 17 people wounded in the explosion that rocked a village in the Sarikamis district on Thursday night, according to officials. Two of those wounded were said to be a in a critical condition.

The Turkish Interior Ministry said it happened as militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (or PKK) were loading explosives onto a truck that they planned to use for an attack on security forces.

The blast was heard from the region’s biggest city of Diyarbakir, 25 kilometres away, and sparked more deadly clashes between soldiers and PKK militants in the nearby provinces of Hakkari and Sirnak.

It followed a car bomb attack near a military facility earlier in the day in an Istanbul suburb that wounded seven people, and a car bombing in Diyarbakir on Tuesday (May 10) that targeted police and killed three people.

Since a ceasefire between the PKK and the government collapsed last July, Turkey’s southeast has seen some of its worst violence in twenty years. The conflict has killed more than 40,000 people to date.

-- (c) Copyright Euronews 2016-05-14

people do anything to be freed from being oppressed, murdered, humiliated and imprisoned, so does the PKK, so do the Palestinians, so do Syrians, so do Iraqis, so does everybody.

It does not make them terrorists, which word by the way was 'invented' by bush and friends after 9/11.

You must be a very young man. I know the word terrorist has been in use since the 1980's as related to criminal actions by extremist in the Middle East. For instance the book "Terrorism Nightmare on Flight 422" was written in 1988 and the TWA 847 flight hijacked in 1985 had the description of terrorist used with it. I'm sure it's much older than that.

I'm not a Bush fan (at least not of George II), but let's not give credit where it doesn't belong. I will give you some credit though, the "War on Terror" is a product the hijackings that occurred on 11 Sept 2001.

You must be a very young man. I know the word terrorist has been in use since the 1980's as related to criminal actions by extremist in the Middle East. For instance the book "Terrorism Nightmare on Flight 422" was written in 1988 and the TWA 847 flight hijacked in 1985 had the description of terrorist used with it. I'm sure it's much older than that.

I'm not a Bush fan (at least not of George II), but let's not give credit where it doesn't belong. I will give you some credit though, the "War on Terror" is a product the hijackings that occurred on 11 Sept 2001.

Very true.

The word originates from France back in the late 18th century, ironically then it referred to the French state.

For me the difference is that terrorists kill indiscriminately i.e. innocent people, they are not really fighting the government(s) to overthrow them.