VAN, Turkey
A Turkish soldier was injured in an attack on an armored military vehicle in Turkey's eastern Van province on Monday, Turkish security sources said.
The army vehicle came under attack while it was on routine patrol duty on the Caldiran-Dogubayazit Highway near the Mount Tendurek Pass. The security sources blamed “PKK terrorists” for the incident.
The specialist sergeant wounded in the attack was transferred in an ambulance to the Yuzuncu Yil University Dursun Odabas Medical Center.
Also, suspected PKK militants clashed with security forces using heavy weapons in the area and blocked the Mount Tendurek Pass between Caldiran and Dogubayazit by setting ablaze a truck.
An operation was launched in the area to nab the attackers.
The PKK is listed by Turkey, the U.S. and EU as a terrorist organization.
Turkish security forces have detained 1,050 suspects across 34 Turkish provinces since the nationwide "anti-terrorist operations" in the country began early Friday, the Turkish Prime Minister’s Office of Public Diplomacy said in a statement Monday.
Most of the suspects allegedly belong to Daesh, the PKK and the far-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).
The operations came after a major escalation in tensions in Turkey's southern border region, including a suicide bomb attack, which killed 32 people on July 20 and the killing, two days later, of two police officers in the same region.
