Fireworks thrown by anti-government protesters explode near riot policemen during a demonstration in Istanbul March 12, 2014.

Two Turkish policemen and seven Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militants were killed in a firefight after police raided more than a dozen houses in Turkey’s southeast early on Monday, security sources said.

The clashes in the Kayapinar district of the mainly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir were on-going, the sources said.

Turkish authorities have extended operations into suspected ISIS cells after a double suicide bombing in Ankara that killed more than 100 people – the worst attack of its kind in Turkey’s modern history – was blamed on the militant group.

Last week, President Tayyip Erdogan said Syrian intelligence and Kurdish militants, not just ISIS, were behind the attack that targeted a rally of pro-Kurdish activists and civic groups.

Erdogan said Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, the Syrian “mukhabarat” secret police and the Syrian Kurdish PYD militia had worked together with Islamic State in the bombing on Oct. 10.

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