On July 7, Turkey was plunged into a spiral of violence that takes a turn for the worse with each passing day. With two major incidents Sept. 6 and Sept. 8, Turkey was introduced to the destructive potential of roadside improvised explosive devices (IED).
The first attack occurred in southeastern Turkey, in Daglica, a rural area of Yuksekova district in Hakkari province, killing 16 soldiers, including the newly assigned battalion commander, a lieutenant colonel. Situated along the Iraq-Turkey border, the mountainous Daglica region, with its rough terrain and adverse weather conditions, is the main point of entry into Turkey for Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighters from camps at Avashin-Basyan, Hakurk and Qandil, in northern Iraq. This is why Daglica has been a target of the PKK’s most blood-soaked attacks. In October 2007, after a PKK operation at Daglica, the Turkish Armed Forces (TSK) launched airstrikes against PKK targets in northern Iraq, and after four months of bombing, staged a short, cross-border ground operation against the same targets, in February 2008.
Since early August, when army-PKK clashes intensified, TSK units based at Semdinli-Yuksekova, covering a rural area that includes Daglica, had most of their connections severed with the towns of Semdinli and Yuksekova. The main reason was the PKK creating so-called zones of death by planting IEDs along the roads linking the military bases to the towns.
On Sept. 6, an armored patrol had moved out of the Daglica base to check that the critical, main supply route between the Border Battalion Command at Daglica and the town of Yuksekova was open and safe. It was a foggy and rainy day. Two of the armored vehicles were hit with 300- to 400-kilogram (661- to 882-pound) IEDs reinforced with C4 explosives. At the point of attack, the patrol then came under heavy machine-gun fire from PKK militants deployed in strategic positions. Clashes continued late into the evening. Because of adverse weather, no aerial medevacs could be conducted nor could reinforcements be brought in. The PKK kept up its mortar and heavy machine-gun fire throughout the night from hardened positions and prevented the deployment of military reinforcements by road.
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