Turkey: 25 PKK rebels, 2 policemen reported killed

Clashes between the Turkish military and Kurdish rebels have killed 25 rebels and two police officers in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish regions, authorities reported on Tuesday.

Kurdish militants killed two police officers on Monday night in the southern city of Adana. Governor Mustafa Buyuk said assailants riding a motorcycle fired on a police vehicle outside a hospital in Adana before fleeing.

Turkey’s military, meanwhile, said six PKK rebels were killed on Monday in a clash with the security forces in Hakkari province, near the border with Iraq. At least 19 others were killed in airstrikes on Friday conducted by Turkish jets against suspected PKK targets in northern Iraq’s Gara region, a military statement said on Tuesday, without elaborating.

Separately, four people were injured late Monday after rebels belonging to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, fired a rocket at a military convoy on a highway in southeast Turkey, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Around 150 police and soldiers have died since July in renewed fighting between the PKK and the Turkish security forces. Turkish officials say hundreds of PKK rebels have been killed in ground-and-air offensives against the group in southeast Turkey as well as in cross-border aerial operations in northern Iraq.

The fighting has shattering a fragile peace process with the Kurds.