Nine Kurdish militants die in air strikes

DIYARBAKIR: Turkish military helicopters killed nine Kurdish militants in strikes near the southeastern border with Syria yesterday, security sources said, in a conflict becoming increasingly intertwined with developments in Turkey’s war- torn neighbour.

The Cobra attack helicopters launched the assault at around 6am local time as a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters travelled through a mountainous area near the Idil district of Turkey’s Sirnak province, the sources said.

Parts of Idil were placed under 24-hour curfew last week as security forces carried out an operation against the militants. That was part of a wider military campaign which began in December in towns in the mostly Kurdish south-east following the collapse in July of a ceasefire with the PKK.

Violence in Turkey’s southeast is at its worst since the 1990s, turning parts of the region into a war zone. PKK militants have dug trenches and erected barricades in towns and cities, and the death toll has climbed into the hundreds as the security forces try to flush them out.

It has also complicated international efforts to end the war in Syria. Ankara sees the PKK as closely linked to the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which has enjoyed US support in the fight against Islamic State insurgents but which Ankara sees as a hostile force bent on seizing Syrian territory abutting Turkey.

The PKK is deemed a terrorist group by Turkey, the US and EU. It launched its insurgency in 1984. – Reuters