Six Turkish Military Men Killed By Remote Bomb on Syrian Border

Five Turkish soldiers and a member of a special operations team died in a bomb blast on Saturday during a security operation in the southern Turkish city of Nusaybin, local media reported.

ANKARA (Sputnik) — The military operation was conducted in the Kurdish-dominated city on the Syrian border as part of Ankara’s ongoing effort to defeat the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), outlawed in Turkey.

A military source told the Turkish Dogan news agency that Kurdish insurgents had detonated the bomb remotely when security forces entered a home in Nusaybin.

Some 350 service members have died in clashes with PKK since a ceasefire between Kurdish rebels and Ankara broke down in July 2015, prompting Turkish authorities to launch raids in the Kurdish-majority southeastern provinces.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that more than 5,000 rebels had been killed over the same period of time, although pro-Kurdish lawmakers say the campaign took a heavy toll on the civilian population.