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Ten killed, including police, as violence sweeps southeast Turkey
A Turkish soldier sits on top of a tank, with the Syrian town of Kobani in the background, as seen from the southeastern town of Suruc close to the Mursitpinar border crossing on the Turkish-Syrian border, October 10, 2014. PHOTO BY REUTERS/Umit Bektas
By Humeyra Pamuk and Ayla Jean Yackley
10/10/2014
ISTANBUL/MURSITPINAR (Reuters) - At least ten people died in eastern Turkey when gunmen opened fire on police, and Kurds angry over a siege by Islamist militants on their ethnic kin in Syria clashed with other groups in the country's sixth largest city, local media said on Friday.
Intense fighting continued in the Syrian Kurdish border town of Kobani, where a more than three-week-old assault by Islamic State fighters has infuriated Turkey's 15 million strong Kurdish minority, which wants Ankarato intervene militarily.
Automatic gunfire echoed across the border but a Kurdish military official said the advance by Islamic State militants on the town had been slowed by ongoing U.S.-led coalition airstrikes.
The unrest in Turkey over the fate of Kobani risks stirring up deep-running ethnic divisions there and wrecking a delicately poised peace process aimed at disarming fighters from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), who have been fighting a 30-year-old insurgency against the Turkish authorities demanding more autonomy.
At least 25 people were killed earlier in the week as violence erupted during pro-Kobani demonstrations in towns and cities across the country.
A police chief and a policeman were seriously injured and two officers killed on Thursday after unidentified gunmen opened fire with automatic weapons as they inspected shops damaged during troubles earlier in the week in the eastern province of Bingol, according to Dogan News Agency.
Four of the alleged attackers were later killed and two more were caught following a shootout with security forces, the agency reported.
No details of the attackers were available early on Friday and no one claimed responsibility for the reported assassination attempt, the first of its kind since a senior police officer was gunned down in Diyabakir in 2001.
"Terrorists responsible for this (attack), were punished within one or two hours, all necessary measures taken," Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara on Friday, without giving further details.
GUNS AND SWORDS
The southeastern border province of Gaziantep saw some of the worst violence overnight, when four people were killed and 20 were wounded as armed clashes broke out between protesters demonstrating in solidarity with Kobani and groups opposing them.
Footage showed crowds of mostly men armed with guns, swords and sticks roaming the street of Gaziantep, and two local branches of the Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) in Gaziantep were set on fire, Dogan News Agency reported.
Police officers were also targeted in attacks in the southeastern province of Siirt, the southern province of Mersin and the eastern Tunceli province, local media reported, whilst government buildings including police headquarters came under attack.
The fledgling Kurdish peace process championed by Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan has helped smooth over some of the bitterness created by the three decade insurgency which left an estimated 40,000 people dead, but recent clashes risk re-opening old wounds.
Kurdish anger over Kobani has also revived long-standing grudges between sympathizers of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and Turkey's Hizbullah, a radical Islamist group with strong anti-PKK leanings.
Speaking on Wednesday, Davutoglu warned against jeopardizing efforts to find a lasting peace.
"Where there is no public order, there won't be a peace process, there will be nothing," he said during a speech in Ankara, in reference to the unrest earlier in the week.
KOBANI FIGHTING
The refusal of Turkey - which has NATO's second biggest army - to intervene militarily to halt Islamic State's advance toward Kobani has put it under increasing pressure both from Kurdish groups but also Ankara's western allies.
Turkish officials insist they will not be sucked into unilateral action embroiling them in Syria's bitter civil war, which has already driven more than 1.2 million people across the border, a refugee flood that Turkey has struggled to cope with.
On Friday intense gunfire between Islamic State fighters and outgunned Kurdish forces in the streets of Kobani could be heard from across the border.
Jets roared overhead and the western edge of town was hit by an airstrike apparently carried out by U.S.-led coalition warplanes which have intensified their campaign against IS targets around Kobani in recent days.
The head of the Kurdish forces defending Kobani said Islamic State was in control of roughly a third of the town. Intensified coalition air strikes were helping to check the group's advance, Kurdish military officials said.
The Islamists have been gradually tightening their stranglehold on Kobani for more than three weeks, using heavy artillery to pound residential areas and sending an estimated 200,000 people, mostly Syrian Kurds, fleeing across the border.
Kurdish officials have called for Ankara to allow weapons and fighters to flow into Kobani from Turkey, but Turkish officials are reluctant to help the town's defenders, because they have strong links with the PKK, still viewed as a terrorist organization in Turkey, the U.S. and Europe.
(Reporting by Seda Sezer in Istanbul and Tom Perry in Beirut, writing by Jonny Hogg, editing by Philippa Fletcher)
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