Turkish military helicopters kill nine in strikes on PKK targets

Turkish military helicopters killed nine Kurdish militants in strikes near the southeastern border with Syria on Wednesday, security sources said.

The Cobra attack helicopters launched the assault at around 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) as a group of Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters traveled through a mountainous area near the Idil district of Turkey's Sirnak province, the sources said.

The violence in Turkey's southeast is at its worst since the 1990s, turning parts of the region into a war zone. PKK militants have dug trenches and erected barricades in towns and cities, and the death toll has climbed into the hundreds as the security forces try to flush them out.

On Tuesday, security forces killed six PKK militants in Idil and two others in the Sur district of the region's largest city Diyarbakir, the armed forces said in a statement. A soldier died of his wounds after coming under attack from PKK fighters in Sur on Wednesday, it said.

The statement also said security forces had detained four members of the PKK and PYD, the political arm of the Syrian YPG, on Tuesday in the Akcakale district of Sanliurfa province, two of whom had sought to cross the border from Syria illegally.