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4 Turkish police killed in PKK attack

Xinhua, September 3, 2015 Adjust font size:

Four police officers were killed in an ambush Thursday by militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the southeastern province of Mardin, Dogan news agency reported.

PKK militants set alight a school building under construction and then detonated an explosive planted on the road in the Dargecit district of Mardin, targeting an armored police vehicle that accompanied the fire brigades responding to the fire.

Authorities have launched a major operation to catch the perpetuators of the attack, Dogan said.

Tensions escalated in both eastern and southeastern Turkey amid the Turkish military's ongoing cross-border bombing campaign against PKK hideouts in northern Iraq.

The operations were followed by several attacks against Turkish security forces by the PKK inside Turkey, killing over 60 soldiers and police officers.

The PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, took up arms in 1984 in an attempt to create an ethnic homeland in southeastern Turkey. More than 40,000 people have since been killed in conflicts involving the group. Endit