14 PKK militants killed in Turkey’s southeast, northern Iraq

ANKARA

A total of 14 outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) militants were killed on April 29 in separate air operations in Turkey's southeastern Adıyaman province and northern Iraq, the Turkish military said.In a written statement, the Turkish Armed Forces said an hour long air operation on Iraq's Sinat-Haftanin region starting at 8.31 a.m. had killed six militants.In another air operation in the southeastern Adıyaman province at around 07.10 a.m., eight militants were killed.The statement said the militants had been plotting terrorist attacks.Adıyaman Governor Abdullah Erin said search teams including the Turkish Land Forces are currently sweeping the area."None of our soldiers were injured, fortunately," he added.In a separate statement, the Turkish Armed Forces said a total of 112 PKK militants were killed between April 20-28.The operations took place in Turkey's southeastern and eastern provinces of Şırnak, Hakkari, Siirt, Diyarbakır, Mardin, Tunceli, Bitlis, and Kars.In the operations, 53 rifles were seized, along with two automatic rifles, six RPG rocket launchers, four sniper rifles, and 78 hand grenades.President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that as many as 220 militants had been killed in recent strikes elsewhere in northern Iraq.On April 28, Turkish military “retaliated” to a rocket attack on a Turkish border post in the province of Şanlıurfa from areas controlled by the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) in Syria, the army said, killing 11 militants.This added to an earlier statement, which said 11 border posts had been subjected to 13 attacks from areas controlled by YPG, following military air strikes on the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and YPG in Syria and Iraq.