Turkish security forces have killed 18 Kurdish militants in southeast Turkey, the military said on Saturday, in the latest clashes to blight a region still reeling from the collapse of a two-year ceasefire last summer. Security sources said five people, four of them soldiers, had also been wounded in separate gun and bomb attacks in Diyarbakir, biggest city in the mainly Kurdish southeast.
The armed forces said in a statement that 16 PKK fighters had been killed on Friday in the town of Cizre, near the Syrian border, and another two rebels had been killed in the historical Sur district of Diyarbakir. In Sur, one soldier was shot while another three soldiers and a public sector worker were also wounded in a bomb attack on Saturday, security sources said. In the town of Silopi, near the Iraqi border, security forces seized 24 militants seeking to leave the town with local citizens, the military statement said.