Turkey: Car bomb attack on military outpost kills 3, wounds nearly 40 in SE Turkey

At least three people have lost their lives and more than three dozen sustained injuries in a bomb attack on a military outpost followed by shooting in Turkey’s southeastern province of Mardin.

The car bombing targeted the Cevizlik village outpost in Mardin province, which borders Syria, on Saturday around 12:40 p.m. (0940 GMT), killing two soldiers and a civilian, security sources said.

They added that those wounded in the attack included 23 soldiers, three of whom seriously hurt, 14 civilians as well as one member of the village guard.

The attack came a day after Turkish troops killed 19 PKK militants during clashes elsewhere in the mainly Kurdish region.

Turkish troops killed 17 PKK militants in the Semdinli district of Hakkari province on Friday.

Separately, further north in the Baskale district of Van province, security forces, who were destroying explosives planted beside a road, were engaged in a firefight and killed two PKK militants, according to a military statement.

Ankara has been conducting a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the past few months. The Turkish military has also been pounding the group’s positions in northern Iraq.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, which the Turkish government blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.

After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accuse the government in Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.

A shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 was declared null and void by the militants following the Turkish strikes against the group.

The PKK has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since 1984. The conflict has left more than 40,000 people dead.