Two Turkish police forces and seven members of the Takfiri Daesh terrorist group have been killed in clashes in Turkey’s southeastern province of Diyarbakir, security sources say.
The development came early on Monday after police forces raided a dozen houses in the Kayapinar district of the mainly Kurdish province of Diyarbakir.
According to the sources, four policemen were injured and three militants were captured alive in the clashes.
Turkish security forces say they have extended operations to locate suspected Daesh cells following the October 10 twin blasts in the capital, Ankara, which killed more than 100 people.
The deadly explosions targeted activists who had gathered outside Ankara’s main train station for a peace rally organized by leftist and pro-Kurdish opposition groups. The Turkish government says 102 died in the bombings, but the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) puts the death toll at 128.
Following the blasts, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the attack may have been carried out by Daesh terrorists or Syria’s Kurdish fighters.
On October 19, the Ankara Chief Public Prosecutor’s office said in a statement that one of the bombers in the Ankara blasts had been identified as Yunus Emre Alagoz, the brother of Sheikh Abdurrahman Alagoz, who is believed to have been behind another attack in the southern Turkish town of Suruc on July 20. Over 30 people lost their lives in that blast.
Images captured by surveillance cameras had earlier shown Yunus Emre near the capital’s main train station, the site of the attack, before it took place.
The two brothers had joined Daesh terrorists in neighboring Syria and Iraq last year. They were both on a police wanted list, which has fueled suspicions of negligence on the part of the Turkish government.
Reports said the other attacker, Omer Deniz Dundar, had recently visited Syria twice.