Seven Turkish soldiers killed in Kurdish province of Batman

An Ankara-appointed governor's office initially said the army lost four soldiers.

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) - A roadside bomb early Thursday killed four Turkish soldiers and wounded five others in the Kurdish province of Batman.

Sources told Kurdistan 24's Turkish website that three of the wounded later died in a hospital, raising the number of those killed to seven.

According to a statement from the office of the Ankara-appointed Governor of Batman, the hand-made explosive device went off as an armored military vehicle carrying troops passed through the Gercus district.

The Turkish soldiers were on their way to an ongoing operation carried out in the countryside of Gercus, the statement read.

It blamed "terrorists" but did not specify who or what group staged the attack.

Pro-government media said Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) fighters were responsible.

There was no other Turkish official statement.

The PKK, which has been waging an almost four-decade-long guerrilla warfare against Turkey for recognition of Kurdish rights, including self-rule, has not claimed it.

Government forces launched a"large-scale" second operation in the area.

Elsewhere, in the neighboring Siirt province and Kurdistan Region of Iraq, Turkish warplanes conducted airstrikes against Kurdish rebels.

A press release by the army said three fighters in Siirt and ten others in Kurdistan Region's Avashin-Basyan and Zab were "neutralized," a term Turkish military uses to describe those killed or wounded.

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters walk on the way to their base in Sulaimaniya, Kurdistan Region, March 21, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)
Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters walk on the way to their base in Sulaimaniya, Kurdistan Region, March 21, 2015. (Photo: Reuters)

On its website, the PKK reported assaults on "occupying" Turkish army bases in the Hakkari province and Kurdistan Region's Lelikan hill, without providing any casualty numbers from either warring sides.

Meanwhile, in Diyarbakir, the political center of Kurdish movement in Turkey, authorities announced a round-the-clock curfew in 65 villages and farming communities ahead of an operation targeting Kurdish fighters in the mountainous northern part of the province.

Editing by Nadia Riva