ANKARA, Turkey, July 6 (UPI) -- Three soldiers were killed Tuesday by fire from Kurdish militants using long-range weapons in the southern Turkish province of Hakkari, the government said.
Turkey's state-run Anatolian Agency said militants with the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, fired on a military outpost in Hakkari. Three soldiers were killed and three others were injured. Nine PKK militants were killed in the raid near the border with Iraq.
Ankara has struggled to control a Kurdish militancy led by the separatist PKK for decades. The U.S. military since the invasion of Iraq in 2003 has helped Ankara tackle the PKK with intelligence information as the insurgent group is spread throughout the border regions.
PKK militants stormed a Turkish naval base May 31 in the port city of Iskenderun, killing six Turkish soldiers. Investigators reported that village leaders had spotted armed men in the area in the days leading up to the attack.
Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan told state television in June that the military would fight the PKK until they were "annihilated."
The group is labeled as a terrorist organization by Washington and Ankara.
