ANKARA, Turkey (AP) – Suspected Islamic State militants fired at a Turkish military outpost from inside Syrian territory Thursday, killing a Turkish soldier and wounding two others, an official said.
Suleyman Tapsiz, the governor for the Kilis province said the border outpost was attacked from a region under IS control. Turkish troops retaliated to the attack and at least one IS militant was killed.
“Unfortunately one of our non-commissioned officers was martyred from the initial fire while two of our sergeants were wounded,” Tapsiz said. He said the two were not in serious condition.
The attack comes amid a surge of violence in Turkey following a suicide bomb attack near Turkey’s border with Syria which killed 32 people. The attack has been blamed on militants linked to the Islamic State group and came amid a clamp down by Turkey on the extremist group.
Turkish officials say they have detained more than 500 people suspected of working with IS in the last six months. An operation this month netted 21 terrorism suspects in an investigation of recruitment networks in Turkey.
Earlier Thursday, Turkey’s state-run news agency said unknown attackers fired at traffic police in the country’s mainly-Kurdish southeast, killing one officer and seriously wounding a second.
The Anadolu Agency said the police officers were gunned in a street in Diyarbakir, the region’s largest city. There was no immediate responsibility claim and an operation was launched to catch the assailants.
Kurdish militants on Wednesday claimed responsibility for the slaying of two other policemen who were found shot dead in their shared home and said the attack was carried out in retaliation to the suicide bombing, which killed many Kurds.