Ali Yerlikaya

When Turkey intervened in northern Syria five months ago, it claimed it had no designs on its former Ottoman dominion and that its only goals were to cleanse its borders of the Islamic State and to eliminate what it called the terrorist threat posed by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the US-allied Kurdish militia that is paradoxically the most effective force against the jihadis.

A new Syrian police force trained and equipped by Turkey started work on Jan. 24 in the rebel-held border town of Jarablus, from which Turkey helped drive out Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militants in recent months.

A district governor who was wounded in an outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) attack in the Derik district of the southeastern province of Mardin died in hospital early on Nov. 11, Gaziantep Gov. Ali Yerlikaya has announced.

Three police officers were killed and eight others were wounded on Oct. 16 in an explosion that occurred when a suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant detonated himself during a raid on a house in the Şahinbey district of the southeastern province of Gaziantep, while another suspect also detonated himself during a separate operation in the province.

An explosion has killed three police officers during a raid on a suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) cell house in the southeastern province of Gaziantep, Doğan News Agency has reported.

The blast on Oct. 16 occurred in the Beşyüzevler district of Gaziantep during a raid by Turkish security forces, according to CNN Türk.

Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Işık has paid a visit to the southeastern province of Gaziantep in order to obtain information regarding the activities on the Turkish-Syrian border. Işık was accompanied by Land Forces Commander Gen. Salih Zeki Çolak and other high-level military officials, Anadolu Agency reported on Sept. 29. 

Police in the southeastern province of Gaziantep on Sept. 17 took extensive measures after detaining a suspected Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) militant who possessed pictures of a cemevi, a house of worship used by adherents of the Alevi sect, and was confirmed to be preparing a terror attack.  
 

Turkish Chief of General Staff Gen. Hulusi Akar paid a visit to border posts in the Karkamış district in the southern province of Gaziantep on Sept. 12 to celebrate Islam's holy Eid al-Adha (Feast of Sacrifice) holiday with soldiers amid the ongoing Euphrates Shield Operation in Syria.

Terror attacks in two seperate Turkish provinces in the southeast killed five soldiers and two police officers over the weekend.

Two police officers were killed in a bomb attack on a police headquarters in the southeastern province of Gaziantep on the morning of May 1, Gov. Ali Yerlikaya has confirmed. 

Two police officers were killed in a bomb attack on a police headquarters in the southeastern province of Gaziantep on the morning of May 1, Gov. Ali Yerlikaya has confirmed. 

At least 18 policemen and four civilians were injured in the suspected car bomb attack that was carried out around 9:20 a.m.