The Turkish Armed Forces have launched its annual fall military operations against the outlawed Kurdish Workers' Party (PKK), a month earlier than previous years, local Today's Zaman (Time) reported on Monday.
Annual operations usually start in October, but this year brought both an earlier start and an expanded area, leaving 16 PKK members killed and 6 others captured in intensive counter- terrorism operations during last week, said the English-language newspaper.
According to the report, four terrorists were killed Sunday morning in a raid by the security forces in the Cukurca district of Hakkari province of southeastern Turkey and operations were continuing in the temporary security zones of provinces of Sirnak, Siirt, Hakkari, Mus, Diyarbakir, Bitlis, Bingol and Tunceli.
There were approximately 40,000 troops involved in the operations, which were carried out in the rural parts of Turkey's southeastern region, it said.
Village guards and locals armed by the state against the PKK were called to duty indefinitely in order to assist the security forces, the report said.
Three months ago, the Turkish military installed sensor devices in the major army posts and at strategic points along the Iraqi border, making it much easier to pursue the PKK members.
In addition, new radars were installed in the region to give military forces full control of the PKK's passage routes, the newspaper said.
The PKK has increased attacks on Turkish troops in southeastern Turkey in recent months, which led to rising Turkish demands for an incursion into northern Iraq to crush the rebels based there.
The group, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, launched an armed campaign for an ethnic homeland in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking decades of strife that has claimed more than 30, 000 lives.
Source: Xinhua
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