Bomb attack kills 14 Turkish police officers as jets strike PKK in Iraq

Kurdish militants killed 14 police officers in a bomb attack on a minibus in a Turkish province bordering Armenia and Iran on Tuesday, a government official told Reuters, widening a conflict with the Turkish state.

More than 40 Turkish warplanes hit Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets overnight in northern Iraq, where the group has bases, in response to Sunday’s killing of 16 soldiers near the Iraqi border, the deadliest attack since a two-year-old ceasefire ended.

Daily attacks

Tuesday’s bombing in Igdir province was the latest in a daily stream of attacks by the PKK on soldiers and police in eastern Turkey since fighting resumed in July.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the PKK had suffered “serious damage” inside and outside Turkey and was now on the back foot.

“The recent developments are a result of the ensuing panic. The losses inflicted on the organisation by [Turkish military] operations can be expressed in the thousands,” he said in a speech to academics at his palace in Ankara.

Renewed conflict

The renewed conflict, weeks before polls the ruling AK Party hopes will restore its majority, has shattered a peace process launched by Mr. Erdogan in 2012 in an attempt to end an insurgency that has killed more than 40,000 people over three decades.

It has also complicated Turkey’s role in the U.S.-led fight against the Islamic State (IS). A Kurdish militia allied with the PKK has been battling the IS in northern Syria, backed by U.S. air strikes. But Turkey fears territorial gains by Syria’s Kurds will fuel separatist sentiment among its own Kurdish population.

Dozens of F-16 and F-4 jets took part in the air operation in northern Iraq, which began around 10 p.m. (1900 GMT) on Monday and continued for six hours. They targeted PKK bases in Qandil, Basyan Avashin and Zap, and hit weapons and food stores as well as the militants’ machinegun positions.

‘Hot pursuit’ manoeuvre

Military operations involving ground troops were continuing in a forested area right on the border, security sources said, but did not confirm Turkish media reports that special forces had crossed into Iraq in a “hot pursuit” manoeuvre — something they have done during past periods of intense conflict.

One of the sources said scores of PKK fighters were killed in the bombing raids. The PKK, which launched a separatist insurgency in 1984, is designated a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.