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New Heron images refute General Staff explanation on Hantepe
Six soldiers were killed when the terrorist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) attacked the outpost in mid-July. In early August a Turkish daily claimed that Herons informed 30 security units -- including the General Staff -- of every second of the attack but that security forces failed to take action against the terrorist group. In a belated explanation, the General Staff argued that the attack started at 1:45 a.m. and that the Herons started to provide intelligence about the clashes between the terrorists and security forces at around 2:15 a.m.
New Heron images, published by the Star daily on Tuesday, however, suggest that the General Staff is mistaken in its explanation.
According to the images, Herons started to provide intelligence about the presence of a terrorist group in the Hantepe area at 2:15 a.m. and showed that the group attacked the outpost at 2:39 a.m. Star argued that the Heron images were being transmitted to over 30 security units and that the units should have informed military authorities at the outpost about the approaching terrorist group.
The first terrorist attack on the outpost came with a hand grenade at 2:39 a.m. Terrorists shot at soldiers stationed at the outpost until 2:55 a.m.
Heron images of the clashes were simultaneously conveyed to the General Staff headquarters and other security units. A nearby division unit can supposedly send an aid and attack helicopter to the Hantepe outpost within 15 minutes, but none arrived on the scene. The soldiers at the outpost were left to their own fate.
Images from the attack show seven terrorists checking to see if any soldier had remained alive in the vicinity after the attack at around 3 a.m. and then resting peacefully. The terrorists then picked up their belongings and started to leave the scene of the assault.
Herons captured footage of the terrorists as they left for northern Iraq and conveyed the images to the security units, but still no action was taken. Helicopters and fighter jets arrived in the region only at around 4 a.m. There is growing public expectation now that the General Staff will release a satisfactory statement on the military’s failure to send aid to the Hantepe outpost and soldiers before and during the terrorist attack. The statement posted on the military’s website on Aug. 21 did not help ease public concerns about the attack. In the statement the General Staff said the images from the Herons published in various newspapers were “incomplete and false.”
The military failed to explain how the terrorists were able to deploy anti-aircraft missiles -- which the statement says were used on that day -- and why no intelligence could be gathered about this. Military experts say it is simply not normal for the military to not have gotten any intelligence on a highly organized attack that involved ambush, harassment fire and infiltration staged with the use of heavy artillery.
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