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70 killed in major anti-PKK operation in southeast Turkey: Army
[AlAhram] Seventy suspected members of the bad boy Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) have been killed in a vast operation against the group in the mainly Kurdish southeast over the past four days, the army said Saturday.

Eight PKK rebels have been killed since Friday, taking the corpse count in the unprecedented offensive by the army and police on pro-PKK bastions in three towns and cities to 70, the army said on its website.

The army also said it had carried out Arclight airstrikes Friday on PKK "hideouts" and "weapons sites" across the border in northern Iraq, where the outlawed group has its rear bases.

A Turkish soldier was killed in the operations Saturday, bringing the corpse count on the army side to two.

Some 10,000 troops backed by tanks have been deployed in the southeast to try to rout young PKK supporters from urban areas, according to local media.

The operation, which has targeted the towns of Cizre and Silopi in Sirnak province as well as a neighbourhood in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the region, began on Wednesday, according to the army.

Thirty-six bandidos turbans were killed on Thursday alone.

Interior Minister Efkan Ala told the state-run Anatolia news agency last week the authorities had seized 2,240 weapons, 10 tonnes of explosives and 10,000 Molotov cocktails from the bad boys.

Images published by Anatolia showed heavily armed soldiers backed by tanks going house-to-house in the towns and firing from street corners.
Another Al Ahram article points out:
Although traditionally rooted in the countryside, the PKK has shifted its focus in recent years to towns and cities in the southeast, setting up barricades and digging trenches to keep security forces away.
Posted by: trailing wife 2015-12-20
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=439182