Four Turkish soldiers were killed and nine others were wounded on Wednesday in an attack on a military convoy blamed on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, the army said. The military convoy was travelling on the road between Semdinli and Aktutun in the south-eastern Hakkari province when it was hit by the roadside bomb left by the "separatist terror group", the army said, using its customary phrase for the PKK.
The nine injured soldiers were taken to hospital, four of them in serious condition. In a separate statement, the Turkish army said its warplanes on Tuesday dropped bombs on arms depots, shelters and caves used by PKK militants in the Daglica region in Hakkari as well as in northern Iraq. Following the collapse of a two-year cease-fire in summer 2015, Turkey has been waging an offensive against the PKK, which is regarded as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies. Since then, hundreds of members of the Turkish security forces have been killed in attacks but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed no let up in the operation. Violence spiked again over the last week, with eight soldiers dying in a single operation against the PKK also in Hakkari province and 16 villages blown up in the province of Diyarbakir after intercepting a truck laden with PKK explosives.