ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A senior Turkish official says Kurdish rebels have detonated an explosive device on a road in southeast Turkey, killing seven soldiers.
Numan Kurtulmus, a deputy chairman of the ruling party, said the attack on Thursday occurred near the town of Gercus in Batman province.
The soldiers were inside an armored military vehicle on their way to carry out operations against the rebel group, according to the state-run Anadolu agency. It said the military had launched a "wide-scale" operation to apprehend the assailants.
The Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, has waged a more than three-decade old insurgency in Turkey's mostly Kurdish southeast region. The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since it started in 1984.
The group is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its Western allies.
