Articles About Terrorist Activities

A top figure with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has said that members of the group met with the United States until 2004, a claim that a U.S. official quickly denied.

“There were some contacts in 2003-2004 with the United States,” Murat Karayılan, a PKK leader based in the Kandil Mountains in northern Iraq, said in an interview with daily Radikal that the paper published Friday in the second part of a multi-part story.

“His assertions are ridiculous. A terrorist leader who the United States has marked as a drug trafficker has no credibility,” an anonymous U.S. official told the Hürriyet Daily News & Economic Review on Friday, noting that the United States has designated Karayılan as a “drug kingpin.” Read the rest of this entry »

The 65th meeting of Turkey-EU Joint Parliamentary Committee held Wednesday in Brussels discussed Turkish-European cooperation in counterterrorism and PKK activity in Europe.

EU’s Counterterrorism Coordinator Gilles De Kerchove touched on extradition of terrorists, an issue on which Turkey complains about, and said that Turkey should not seek extradition of suspects on grounds of terrorists acts. It would not work since every EU country had different definitions of terrorism and terrorist crimes, he said, adding that Turkey should bring specific accusations such as drug and human trafficking, or money laundering. “Extradition of suspects would become easier if trials are handled according to EU standards in Turkey,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »

A Turkish court has started to hear the case of more than 150 Kurds, including a dozen elected mayors, on charges of membership in a political wing of the separatist Kurdish guerrilla group.

Police on Monday escorted about 100 of the suspects under tight security to the court house in Diyarbakir, the largest city in the Kurdish-dominated southeast where the rebels have been fighting for autonomy since 1984. Read the rest of this entry »

Two soldiers died and another one was injured in clash with terrorists in Ovacik township of southeastern province of Tunceli on Wednesday.

The incident happened when patrolling security forces met a group of terrorists in rural area of Ovacik township. A clash erupted when terrorists opened gunfire on troops who called them to surrender.

Injured soldiers were immediately hospitalized.

One terrorist was killed in the clash. Read the rest of this entry »

Separatist Kurdish rebels have kidnapped three workers from a road construction site in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, officials said Friday.

The trio were abducted by Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels around 6:00 pm (1500 GMT) Thursday from the site near the town of Silvan in Diyarbakir province, a brief statement from the provincial governor’s office said.

It was not immediately clear why PKK militants targeted the workers. The group has in the past kidnapped soldiers, policemen, local politicians, tourists and journalists, among others, but it is a rare tactic. Read the rest of this entry »