Eight soldiers were killed Wednesday afternoon by a roadside
bomb attack blamed on the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or the PKK, the Turkish
military said.
The soldiers
were traveling in an armored vehicle in southeastern Turkey's Siirt province
when a remote-controlled bomb exploded, Turkey's semiofficial Anadolu Agency
reported.
Earlier
Wednesday, two gunmen were arrested near Istanbul's Dolmabahce Palace, Turkey's
Dogan News Agency reported after gunfire erupted close to a police post at the
palace.
No injuries or
deaths were immediately reported in that incident. The Istanbul governorate said
the two suspects were carrying automatic weapons and hand grenades.
Anadolu said the
suspects are members of the far-left Revolutionary People's Liberation
Party-Front or DHKP-C. Last week, Anadolu reported two female members of DHKP-C
were responsible for the shooting at the U.S. Consulate in
Istanbul on August 10. The group
claimed responsibility for a 2013 suicide bombing at U.S. Embassy in Ankara.
Turkey has been
experiencing an escalation in violence on multiple fronts. In July, a suicide
blast that authorities blamed on ISIS killed
33 people in Suruc in southern Turkey. The country launched airstrikes against
ISIS in Syria after the group attacked Turkish troops at the Syria-Turkey
border, killing a soldier.
Turkey also
launched airstrikes against the PKK in northern Iraq and within Turkey as part
of its anti-terrorism efforts. Since July, more than 50 Turkish security
personnel have been killed, special security zones in numerous districts in the
east and southeast have been declared, and more than 1,000 people with alleged
links to ISIS, PKK, and DHKP-C have been detained.
Last week, the United States began launching manned
airstrikes against ISIS from a
base in southern Turkey.
The United
States has long wanted to use Turkish bases for manned airstrikes against ISIS
in Syria and parts of Iraq. Such access should shorten flight times for U.S.
(and presumably allied) fighter jets -- especially into Syria, where the group
calling itself the Islamic State has its de facto capital in Raqqa -- compared
with taking off from bases in Iraq or aircraft carriers in the Persian Gulf.
Turkey has long
endured the buildup of ISIS on its long and porous border with Syria, but until
July was reluctant to permit the U.S. to use its bases to strike the radical
militant group.
Ankara has been
under long and consistent pressure from allies to move more directly against
ISIS. The pressure increased inside Turkey after a series of attacks blamed on
the group.
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