Three Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) members were killed on Thursday by security forces after they set a power plant on fire, as concerns about Turkey being targeted by the PKK and the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) have grown following a series of murders in the east. Report TodayZaman

The National Police Department has reportedly issued a warning against the possibility of further terrorist attacks amid consecutive murders that have occupied the political agenda since early October, when protests over the border town of Kobani claimed more than 40 lives in Turkey. Meanwhile, the PKK has intensified its attacks both on security forces and military outposts.

Bingöl Deputy Police Chief Atıf Şahin and police officer Hüseyin Hatipoğlu were killed by gunfire from terrorists on Oct. 9, while Bingöl Police Chief Atalay Ülker was severely injured in the assault and hospitalized. Four of the alleged assailants were killed in clashes after the attack, Interior Minister Efkan Ala announced. However, there are serious unsolved points in the incident, as the PKK has argued that the four individuals were not members of the terrorist group, prompting questions about the attack and its perpetrators.

However, claims of negligence regarding the deaths have appeared in the media, as a court rejected the police’s request for a search of the city following intelligence that a group of terrorists had entered the city to target the police force.

According to the media reports, the intelligence reports received by the National Police Department revealed that extremist groups are preparing for more intensified assaults on big cities and are targeting prominent figures in society, such as prosecutors, judges, police chiefs, lawyers and members of civil society.

The same intelligence report also warned that ISIL cells have decided to stage suicide bombings in seven Turkish provinces, and all police units in the country have been notified in case the possible attacks take place.

Sedat Laçiner, a professor of international relations and the rector of Çanakkale Onsekiz Mart University (ÇOMÜ), told Today’s Zaman that assaults with bomb-laden vehicles and suicide bombings are expected in the upcoming days because of the current atmosphere, in which coordination between the government and police force has been severely damaged since the government started conducting operations into the police force. “The operations and investigations into the police, as well as [massive] reassignments, have created a vulnerable security [situation] for Turkey, since the newly appointed members of the police do not have enough experience in the fields of intelligence and terrorism, which are crucial [with regard] to hampering terrorist activities in the country,” he added.

Since a major corruption scandal implicating then-Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s family and inner circle went on public on Dec. 17, the government has been carrying out sweeping operations into the police force by accusing some members of plotting against the government, which is considered a move to evade the corruption accusations.

3 PKK killed after attack on power plant

 

Despite the fact that government-led meetings with the PKK’s imprisoned leader, Abdullah Öcalan, and other Kurdish political actors are continuing to try and solve the country’s long-decades Kurdish problem, three members of the PKK were killed after they raided a hydroelectric power plant and clashed with gendarmes in the eastern province of Kars on Thursday evening.

Four PKK members staged an attack at a hydroelectric power plant in Kağızman, a district of Kars province. A clash erupted between them and district gendarmes that had arrived at the plant. The four individuals refused to surrender and opened fire at the gendarmes while attempting to flee by a car. The gendarmerie killed three terrorists and launched an operation in order to capture the fourth.

It was reported that four AK-47s and many hand grenades were discovered in the car used by the PKK members.

The PKK is designated as a terrorist organization by the US, European Union and Turkey.

ISIL abducts Syrian opposition commander and son

 

Confirming claims that ISIL is becoming more active in Turkish territory, 15 ISIL militants last week were reported to have abducted an opposition commander, referred to as Hasan M., along with his son, after crossing into Turkey from Syria in the border city of Şanlıurfa.

The Taraf daily reported that the commander and his son were rescued.

As Turkey is now discussing the issue of whether it is the correct move to supply arms to Kurdish peshmerga elements fighting against ISIL in Syrian town of Kobani in the wake of the US having air-dropped weaponry for the militants, ISIL has intensified its activities in Turkish soil, especially in the country’s Southeast.

According to the news report, 15 ISIL militants abducted Hasan M., a commander with the Free Syrian Army (FSA) fighting against Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, and his son, but the hostages were rescued while injured following an operation into the militants in Şanlıurfa’s Akçakale district.

Lawyer Tanay attacked with gun

 

In another incident, former Contemporary Jurists’ Association (ÇHD) İstanbul branch head Taylan Tanay was attacked by three unidentified armed people suspected of belonging to the far-left terrorist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C) in the Avcılar district of İstanbul on Wednesday night. Tanay sought refuge in a supermarket to escape after they shot at him.

The police suspected that the DHKP/C terrorist organization was behind the attack since Tanay is reportedly listed on a blacklist of the organization. The police have launched an investigation into the attack.

Meanwhile, the People’s Democratic Party (HDP) asked the government on Thursday to establish a parliamentary investigation commission related to the Bingöl assault, but the proposal was rejected by ruling Justice and Development Party (AK Party) deputies in Parliament. The HDP claimed that the Bingöl attack is a mysterious, provocative incident.

The main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP) also gave support to the HDP’s proposal, arguing that four people who have no links to the Bingöl incident were executed after the attack, and accused the government of trying to cover up the incident, accusing deep state elements nested in the state of being behind the assassination.

KCK scouts police officers’ homes

 

Members of the outlawed Kurdistan Communities Union (KCK) are reported to be preparing to assassinate a number of intelligence and terror chiefs and officers in the police force, and have scouted the aforementioned polices officers’ homes for the planned murders.

Media reports have argued that a list of police officers who were removed from their posts following Dec. 17 was handed over to KCK militants to be assassinated.

Since Kobani, consecutive murders mar country’s agenda

A series of killings that started in October during the Kobani protests has gained momentum with a new wave of unsolved murders in Turkey’s East, a region that became known in the 1990s for assassinations allegedly by agents of the deep state.

Within just the last two weeks, four people have been murdered in various eastern and southeastern provinces, and an Iranian journalist, Serene Shim, was killed on Saturday in a highly suspicious car accident the day after she complained that the Turkish government had accused her of being an agent collecting intelligence for a foreign country.

In the latest incident, Salih Tekinalp, a former mayor of Şanlıurfa’s Suruç district, and his son Sinan Tekinalp, were shot and killed in their car by unidentified assailants on Sunday.

Also, a shop owner in the city of Van, Muhammed Latif Şener, (66), was shot in the head on Saturday by unidentified persons while heading home. The Patriotic Revolutionist Youth Movement (YDG-H) — an affiliate of the PKK — is accused of being behind the murder.