October 27, 2015•Update: October 29, 2015
DIYARBAKIR, Turkey
Two Turkish police officers martyred in a raid on Daesh militants were killed by a suicide bomber, police said Tuesday.
The officers, identified as Gokhan Cakici, 22, and Sadik Ozkan, 25, were killed when officers stormed an address in the city of Diyarbakir, southeast Turkey, on Monday. Five other officers were wounded in the blast.
Authorities had previously said they were killed by a booby-trap when they entered the property in Kayapinar at around 3.20 p.m. (1220GMT) following a tip-off about Daesh cells preparing attacks.
Seven suspected Daesh members were killed at the property and another in Diyarbakir as armed police carried out simultaneous raids on 17 addresses, the police’s security directorate added.
Another 15 suspects were seized during the operation, including two women and a girl.
On Monday, the provincial governor’s office showed off the arsenal of weapons and explosives captured by police during the operation, including two Kalashnikov assault rifles, eight pistols, a hunting rifle, military-grade explosives, ammonium nitrate and hand grenades.
Five of the dead Daesh members were Turkish nationals registered in the eastern province of Bingol, police said. Officials are still trying to identify the two others through facial recognition technology.
The governor’s office said they had entered Turkey from Syria two months ago and had been closely monitored by police and intelligence officers.
The dead militants had all been trained as suicide bombers, police said.
The raids came two weeks after two suicide bombers linked to Daesh killed 102 people at a rally in Ankara.
