Islamic association head shot dead in Turkey

The killing of Aytac Baran comes two days after a historic election win for Kurds

DIYARBAKIR: Four people were killed in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast on Tuesday after the shooting of an Islamic aid group leader touched off a violent clash, security sources said.

The incident came two days after a historic election win for Kurds. The cause of the killings was not immediately clear, although there have been sporadic clashes in the southeast in recent years between religious parties and supporters of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP).

Security sources confirmed that Aytac Baran, a leader of the Yeni Ihya Der aid group was shot dead as he left his office in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir. Three more people were killed in a clash that followed, the security sources said.

Yeni Ihya Der is linked to the Huda Par political party, which draws support from sympathisers of the Hizbullah group active in the 1990s.

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The attack came two days after the leftist HDP cleared the 10 per cent threshold to enter the Turkish parliament as a party for the first time.

Last Friday three people were killed in two blasts at a HDP rally in Diyarbakir. HDP leader Selahattin Demirtas said on Monday a string of bombings targeting the party during its campaign had been linked with Islamic State militants.

Many of the HDP's Kurdish grassroots supporters are sympathisers of the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has fought a 30-year insurgency against the state in which 40,000 people have been killed.