Türkiye Detains 98 Over Alleged Kurdish Militant Links 

New Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya stands during a press conference where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the new cabinet, in Ankara, Türkiye June 3, 2023. (Reuters)
New Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya stands during a press conference where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the new cabinet, in Ankara, Türkiye June 3, 2023. (Reuters)
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Türkiye Detains 98 Over Alleged Kurdish Militant Links 

New Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya stands during a press conference where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the new cabinet, in Ankara, Türkiye June 3, 2023. (Reuters)
New Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya stands during a press conference where Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced the new cabinet, in Ankara, Türkiye June 3, 2023. (Reuters)

Turkish police on Monday detained 98 suspects over alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group, most of them on a charge of spreading PKK propaganda on social media, the interior ministry said.

In a statement, the ministry said the suspects were detained in simultaneous operations across 18 provinces, with most of the detentions being in southeastern regions.

The PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization by the European Union, United States, and Türkiye, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

Ankara frequently carries out cross-border airstrikes and operations against the PKK, which has bases in the mountains of northern Iraq. It also regularly conducts operations against people linked to it domestically.

In recent weeks, Türkiye has intensified attacks on Kurdish militants in Syria and Iraq, as well as against its members in the country, after militants detonated a bomb near government buildings in Ankara on Oct. 1.

Separately, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on social messaging platform X that authorities had destroyed 63 shelters, caves, and storage units used by PKK militants in six provinces.

"The shelters that the terrorist organization prepared to be used for logistical purposes and to carry out acts in the winter months have been identified and destroyed one by one," Yerlikaya said, adding several weapons, ammunition, and equipment had been seized in the raids.



7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
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7 Killed by Russian Attacks as Moscow Pushes Ahead in Ukraine's East

Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a missile strike on a private building in Cherkaska Lozova, Kharkiv region, northeastern Ukraine, 31 August 2024, amid the Russian invasion. EPA/SERGEY KOZLOV

Russian shelling in the town of Chasiv Yar on Saturday killed five people, as Moscow’s troops pushed ahead in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region.
The attack struck a high-rise building and a private home, said regional Gov. Vadym Filaskhin, who said the victims were men aged 24 to 38. He urged the last remaining residents to leave the front-line town, which had a pre-war population of 12,000.
“Normal life has been impossible in Chasiv Yar for more than two years,” Filaskhin wrote on social media. “Do not become a Russian target — evacuate.” A further two people were killed by Russian shelling in the Kharkiv region. One victim was pulled from the rubble of a house in the village of Cherkaska Lozova, said Gov. Oleh Syniehubov, while a second woman died of her wounds while being transported to a hospital.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it captured the town of Pivnichne, also in Ukraine’s Donetsk region. The Associated Press could not independently verify the claim.
Russian forces have been driving deeper into the partly occupied eastern region, the total capture of which is one of the Kremlin’s primary ambitions. Russia’s army is closing in on Pokrovsk, a critical logistics hub for the Ukrainian defense in the area.
At the same time, Ukraine has sent its forces into Russia’s Kursk region in recent weeks in the largest incursion onto Russian soil since World War II. The move is partly an effort to force Russia to draw troops away from the Donetsk front.
Elsewhere, the number of wounded following a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kharkiv on Friday continued to rise.
Six people were killed, including a 14-year-old girl, when glide bombs struck five locations across the city, said regional Gov. Oleh Syniehubov. Writing on social media Saturday, he said that the number of injured had risen from 47 to 96.
Syniehubov also confirmed that the 12-story apartment block that was hit by one bomb strike, setting the building ablaze and trapping at least one person on an upper floor, would be partly demolished.
Ukrainian officials have previously pointed to the Kharkiv strikes as further evidence that Western partners should scrap restrictions on what the Ukrainian military can target with donated weapons.
In an interview with CNN on Friday, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said that Kyiv had presented Washington with a list of potential long-range targets within Russia for its approval. “I hope we were heard,” he said.
He also denied speculation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy ’s decision to dismiss the commander of the country’s air force Friday was directly linked to the destruction of an F-16 warplane that Ukraine received from its Western partners four days earlier.
The order to dismiss Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk was published on the presidential website minutes before an address which saw Zelenskyy stress the need to “take care of all our soldiers.”
“This is two separate issues,” said Umerov. “At this stage, I would not connect them.”
The number of injured also continued to rise in the Russian border region of Belgorod, where five people were killed Friday by Ukrainian shelling, said Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov. He said Sunday that 46 people had been injured, of whom 37 were in the hospital, including seven children. Writing on social media, Gladkov also said that two others had been injured in Ukrainian shelling across the region.