News

Terrorists hit in Bingöl Turkey: 10 soldiers dead.. 70 injured

"Share this post on social media, spread the news"

Nine Turkish soldiers were killed and 70 others were injured when terrorists from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) attacked a military convoy with rocket launchers in the eastern province of Bingöl, sources said on Tuesday.

The convoy was traveling between the provinces of Bingöl and Muş when it was hit by the rocket launchers near the village of Kardeşler. The attack was the second such assault there in three days. Bingöl Governor Hakan Güvençer said the convoy — made up of three buses, one midibus, one minibus and 10 armored vehicles — was carrying 200 unarmed soldiers to their military units.

According to the governor, an investigation is under way at the site of the attack. “Thirty-four of the injured were rushed to the Bingöl State Hospital and the remaining injured were taken to the Solhan and Muş state hospitals,” Güvençer said when speaking to reporters about the attack. Some of the injured are reportedly in critical condition. “I hope there will not be an increase in the number of dead soldiers,” the governor added.

According to initial reports, the soldiers were just returning from a brief holiday and were headed to their new military units.

The military sent reinforcements to Bingöl and operations were ongoing on Tuesday. Two F-16 fighter jets took off from an air base in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir after the attack. Their destination was unclear. Sources said the terrorists fled the scene in a white vehicle, which is believed to be filled with explosives.

On Sunday, PKK terrorists detonated a roadside bomb also in Bingöl, killing eight police officers and wounding seven others. The PKK usually uses landmines or roadside bombs to attack convoys carrying security forces in the Southeast but the terrorist group used rocket launchers this time.

The Turkish Red Crescent (Kızılay) immediately sent dozens of units of blood to the Bingöl hospital for the injured soldiers. Locals also rushed to the hospitals to donate blood.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan invited Chief of General Staff Gen. Necdet Özel to his office at the Prime Ministry immediately after the attack. News sources said the prime minister and the military chief were going to discuss the recent increase in the number of terror attacks. No details were immediately available about the meeting.

The recent bloody attacks by the terrorist PKK came amid ongoing and heated clashes in southeastern Turkey along the border with Iraq. The Turkish military launched a large-scale operation in Hakkari’s Şemdinli district last month when PKK terrorists blocked the road of a village in the region and interrogated villagers.

Turkish security forces have killed more than 120 terrorists over the past week in a major offensive involving several thousand ground troops and air strikes on PKK bases, some of them across the border in northern Iraq.

The sweeping operations, described as the first major-scale offensive by Turkish security forces in the Southeast, aim to neutralize the terror threat while giving the government breathing room to implement reforms to address the grievances of the local population, mostly Kurds.

Some analysts said Tuesday’s attack was a response to Erdoğan who recently spoke against the increasing number of terrorism acts in the country. He said some 500 PKK terrorists had been “rendered ineffective” — killed, wounded or captured, in the last month alone. He further stated the Turkish military would continue its operations against the PKK as long as the terrorist group kept attacking Turkish security forces and civilians. The prime minister also said the operations would stop only when the PKK lays down its arms.

An eyewitness told reporters that he saw a military bus bursting into flames after the attack. “I heard that there were four injured soldiers. Ambulances came to the area and took the injured to hospitals. I also helped medical staff to carry the injured to the ambulances. One of the soldiers said the bus was attacked with rocket launchers,” he said.

A man who identified himself as a village guard also spoke to reporters and said the PKK terrorists targeted the military convoy with rocket launchers from a nearby mountain. “There is a gendarmerie outpost around four kilometers away [from the site of the attack]. A military bus was in flames. They said the bus was hit by a rocket,” the village guard said.

Listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the EU and the US, the PKK has been carrying out a bloody war in Turkey’s Southeast since 1984. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict between the terrorist PKK and Turkish forces since the PKK launched its fight with the aim of establishing a separate Kurdish state in the predominantly Kurdish Southeast.

Within its borders, the Turkish state has granted more cultural rights to Kurds as a means of easing the long-running conflict with a significant portion of the ethnic minority, but there is still a great deal of distrust between Ankara and many Kurds.

Grand Unity Party (BBP) Chairman Mustafa Destici called on state and military authorities to do their utmost to eradicate PKK terrorism, adding that pledges of “what needs to be done in the fight against the terrorist group will be done” are no longer remedy to people’s sufferings.

The deadly attack is reminiscent of the killing of 33 unarmed off-duty soldiers in Bingöl in 1993. On May 24, 1993, a group of about 150 PKK terrorists blocked the Elazığ-Bingöl highway, stopping several buses that were transferring unarmed Turkish soldiers in civilian clothing. They dragged the soldiers from their vehicles before executing them. The attack broke a PKK ceasefire that had been declared in response to efforts by then-President Turgut Özal to establish a dialogue with the PKK to solve the long-standing Kurdish problem. The military was later criticized for the fact that the soldiers had been unarmed and given no protection.

18.09.2012
SOURCE: TODAYS ZAMAN

 

HEALTH MUSEUM VIDEO PIC 2