ISTANBUL : Militants from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) killed six Turkish soldiers and a village guardsman in two separate attacks on Sunday, the army said.

Five Turkish soldiers were killed in an attack on their military vehicle in Hakkari province on the road between the towns of Beyyurdu and Aktutun close to the border with northern Iraq.

Four soldiers died at the scene and a fifth died in hospital, the army said in a statement.

Turkish security forces had been engaged in a large-scale military operation in Hakkari to target Kurdish militants in the area, Dogan news agency said.

Earlier on Sunday, one Turkish soldier was killed along with a village guard in a car bombing on a military outpost in the eastern province of Van, the army said.

Village guards are local residents who cooperate with security forces throughout eastern Turkey to protect their communities 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.

The attacks came a day after the PKK carried out another car bombing 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 personnel have intensified since the collapse of a two-and-a-half-year ceasefire last July, resulting in the deaths of hundreds of security forces.

The government has conducted military operations against the group in the region’s towns and cities in an attempt to rid urban areas of fighters in recent months.

Activists claim such actions have also killed innocent civilians caught up in the renewed conflict, which has also seen the imposition of curfews on the local population.

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.