Militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) killed five Turkish soldiers and a member of a village guard in two separate attacks today, the army and local media said.
One Turkish soldier was killed along with the guard in the car bombing on a military outpost in the eastern province of Van early today, the army said.
Village guards are local people who work in cooperation with the Turkish security forces throughout eastern Turkey to protect their settlements from the PKK.
At least 15 people were injured including 10 soldiers and five village guards. Among those wounded, one was seriously injured in the mainly Kurdish province, the army said in a statement.
Later this afternoon, four soldiers were killed and another soldier was injured in a roadside bomb attack against an army vehicle in Hakkari province in Turkey's troubled southeast, Dogan news agency reported, quoting the military.
The Turkish security forces had been engaged in Hakkari in a large-scale military operation to eliminate Kurdish militants from the province, which is close to the border with northern Iraq, Dogan added.
The attacks come a day after the PKK carried out another car bombing yesterday in the country's restive southeast, killing two Turkish soldiers and a civilian outside the city of Mardin close to the Syrian border.
Attacks against Turkish military have intensified with almost daily attacks since the collapse of a two-and-a-half- year ceasefire last July, killing hundreds of security forces.
The government has in recent months conducted military operations against the group in the region's towns and cities in an attempt to rid the urban areas of fighters.
Activists claim such actions have also killed innocent civilians caught up in the renewed conflict, which has also seen long curfews supporting the operations.
Since the PKK insurgency began in 1984, nearly 40,000 people have been killed. The group is proscribed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey as well as by the European Union and the United States.
