Dozens of buildings belonging to local branches of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party's (HDP) were attacked on Monday in several cities across Turkey, after the General Staff confirmed that 16 soldiers had been killed in an ambush by the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on Sunday. In Nigde a group of nearly 500 protesters, who gathered in Cumhuriyet Square, attacked the HDP's Nigde branch building with stones. Some of those involved climbed up to the window of the HDP office and broke the signboard of the party, after police failed to disperse the group. Similar attacks were staged in the provinces of Antalya, Mersin, Sakarya and Kayseri and the districts of Manavgat and Çorlu, with protesters stoning the party's local headquarters and hanging Turkish flags on the buildings. The windows of the HDP's Eskişehir branch were broken in a separate attack. In Çorlu, protesters also attempted to lynch the HDP's Tekirdağ provincial co-chair, Şehnaz Kaya. Private television station IMC claimed that a total of 126 of the HDP's provincial and district branches buildings were attacked on Monday. Tensions also ran high in the Beypazarı district of Ankara on Monday night. According to local reports, a group of some 200 people who marched in the district to protest against the PKK were stoned as they were passing by the Zafer neighborhood, where Kurdish seasonal workers are known to live. More joined the group after news of the stoning spread in the district, with the protesters attacking Kurds' houses and setting their vehicles on fire. Riot police were sent to the district after the incidents escalated. Injuries were reported as having occurred due to the incidents. Sixteen soldiers were killed and six were wounded in an ambush on Sunday by the terrorist PKK in the Yüksekova district of southeastern Hakkari province, the Turkish military said on Monday. The two armored vehicles that were carrying the soldiers when they were ambushed were seriously damaged by homemade explosives in the PKK attack in Daglıca, a General Staff statement said late on Monday afternoon. The ambush sparked a nationwide outcry, with dozens of protests being held across the country to denounce PKK terrorism.
