EASTERN Turkey has been paralysed for weeks by clashes between government forces and Kurdish extremists. Now violence is spreading to the rest of the country. Roadside bombs laid by Kurdish fighters killed 30 soldiers and policemen on September 6th and 8th. Bent on revenge, nationalist crowds waving Turkish flags attacked offices of the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party (HDP). In the Mediterranean resort of Alanya, protesters burned a building that housed its provincial headquarters. In Ankara, the capital, a group of fanatics broke into the national party office and tried to set it on fire.

In many places small businesses owned by Kurds have been torched. In the west and centre of the country, angry crowds stopped coaches travelling to the largely Kurdish regions in the south-east, threatening passengers and breaking windows. Offices of the Hürriyet newspaper, which has been accused of distorting statements by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, were surrounded on two occasions by demonstrators wielding stones and clubs.

Two years of talks between the central government and independence-minded Kurds seem definitively over. Strife reignited in July and military operations are gathering pace in several cities. The town of Cizre where ten people died, including children, is under curfew as soldiers conduct door-to-door searches and try to regain control of areas held by militants.

The frenzy of aggression and hatred is not entirely surprising. While they talked last year, both sides quietly prepared for war. The government built new fortified military posts in rural areas where most attacks by rebels from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) took place during the last major fight two decades ago.

Meanwhile, the rebels shifted tactics and boosted their presence in urban areas. “In the 1990s the PKK had a civilian militia whose job was to act as an intermediary between the people and the organisation,” says Aliza Marcus, an analyst and author. “Now it is an armed organisation in itself.”

In recent weeks armed Kurdish gangs known as the Patriotic Revolutionary Youth Movement (YDG-H) have targeted security personnel in towns and cities, killing an unknown number of policemen. Fighting in urban centres is relatively new and makes today’s confrontation particularly volatile.

Generational change

The YDG-H is largely untrained but highly motivated. Most members were born during the traumatic 1990s. “Young Kurds are angry and act as if they have nothing to lose,” says Mahmut Kaya at the DITAM think-tank in Diyarbakir, a Kurdish city. Unless progress is achieved soon, he warns, the window of opportunity for a peace settlement will close since the younger generation is less inclined toward dialogue.

In Silvan, a town of 46,000 people 80km (50 miles) from Diyarbakir, masked youths last month dug trenches and erected barricades. They controlled access to several districts for a nearly a week. “As a Kurd you are insulted, your culture is ignored and you are not seen as human being,” says a 27-year-old female sympathiser, praising the fighters. “For seven days, there was great resistance. Young people stood up and staked their ground.” On August 15th the town’s co-mayors, following the lead of other municipalities in the region, declared self-rule. Three days later armoured military vehicles launched an assault on Silvan. Electricity and communication networks were shut down and a curfew declared as troops battled young militants in narrow streets.

Pockmarked houses, broken windows and the burnt shell of a shop testify to the violence that ensued. “He died in this corner,” says a resident in his 60s, pointing to a spot on a roof terrace where a 25-year-old man was shot during a stand-off, apparently by an army sniper. A water tank riddled with bullet holes stands empty nearby.

With its most recent attacks, the PKK, which is deemed a terrorist group in the EU and America, has upped the ante. Observers say until now it has committed only limited resources to the recent fighting in Turkey. Most of its trained troops are busy in Syria, opposing Islamic State (IS) through a Kurdish affiliate, the People’s Defence Units. The Turkish military is supposedly also committed to fighting IS. Still Ahmet Davutoglu, the prime minister, has vowed to “wipe out” the Kurdish fighters, and warplanes have launched attacks on their camps in northern Iraq.

In Silvan municipal workers are slowly filling in trenches and young militants have faded back into the population, at least for the time being.