HAKKARI
An off-duty soldier has been killed Tuesday in a gun attack in Turkey’s southeastern Hakkari province.
The Turkish Armed Forces said in a statement that infantry sergeant Ziya Sarpkaya died in the Hakkari Devlet Hospital.
Sarpkaya was shot in the head by a “member of the separatist terrorist organization”, the statement read, referring to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
The sergeant was shot by a masked figure in front of a bank office, while carrying out a transaction in the center of Semdinli district at 11.30 a.m. local time (0930 GMT) on Tuesday.
Sarpkaya, who was in civilian clothes when shot, died of his wounds at 1.30 p.m. the army said.
He had been serving in the 34th Border Brigade of Turkish Land Forces Command.
The security forces have launched an operation to find the assailant.
This is the latest attack on Turkey's security forces. Last night, a gendarme commander, Major Arslan Kulaksiz, was killed in an attack in eastern Mus province’s Malazgirt district.
Kulaksiz was fired upon as he was travelling with his wife and child in his car.
Separately, security sources have said that the PKK blew up the Senyayla Bridge on the road linking Diyarbakir province’s Kulp district with Mus province, eastern Turkey.
Nobody was injured in Tuesday's attack but the road was closed to traffic.
A recent wave of violence across Turkey was sparked by the killing of 32 people in Suruc on July 20 in a suicide bomb attack blamed on Daesh.
The bombing and later attacks on security forces led to a nationwide crackdown on militant groups – primarily Daesh, the PKK and the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front – that have seen hundreds of suspects arrested since July 24.
Turkey has also launched air strikes against the PKK in Iraq and Daesh in Syria.
