ERZURUM, Turkey
A Turkish soldier has been wounded in a gun attack in the eastern province of Erzurum.
Security sources said Nazim Altun, a non-commissioned officer serving in the 9th Armored Brigade Command in Horasan district, was fired on from a black car after his military vehicle broke down at a crossroads Wednesday.
Altun was airlifted to hospital, and a wide-scale operation launched to find the assailants.
In a separate attack in the eastern Bitlis province, two armored police cars were hit by a landmine planted in the road. The blast caused no casualties or damage, the provincial governor’s office said, adding that some fleeing assailants were injured after security forces responded to gunfire.
Turkey’s military and police have been hit by a number of attacks over the past week, a series of events touched off by a Daesh-linked suicide bombing in eastern Sanliurfa province that killed 32 people on July 20.
Since then, Turkish security forces have detained suspects linked to Daesh, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), and leftist groups, detaining over 1,300 people across the country according to a statement on Wednesday from the Prime Minister's Office.
