© AFP/File | Turkish police stand near a building where two police officers were found shot dead at their home on July 22, 2015 in the Turkish town of Ceylanpinar
ISTANBUL (AFP) –
Two Turkish police were killed in the southern town of Adana Monday in an attack by Kurdish rebels, a press report said, quoting local officials.
Assailants riding on a motorcycle opened fire on a police car outside a hospital and then fled, the Dogan press agency said.
One died instantly and the second died after emergency surgery, it said, quoting the local governor, Mustafa Buyuk.
“Early indications are that it was an attack by the terrorist organisation,” Buyuk said, in a reference to the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The Turkish government launched a major campaign against the PKK in late July, aimed at forcing it out of strongholds in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq.
The group has hit back hard, killing dozens of police and soldiers in almost daily bomb and shooting attacks.
Nearly 150 soldiers and police have been killed in attacks since July blamed on the PKK compared with more than 1,300 rebels, according to pro-government media. The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democracy Party (HDP) says dozens of civilians have been killed in police and military operations.
The escalation comes ahead of snap elections on November 1.
The violence has shattered a two-year-ceasefire which had stoked hopes of an end to the PKK’s three-decade insurgency, in which more than 40,000 people have died.