ANKARA, Turkey –  Turkey’s state-run news agency says Kurdish rebels detonated a roadside bomb as a military vehicle was passing by, killing three soldiers.

Anadolu Agency said six other soldiers were wounded in the attack on a highway between the eastern provinces of Bingol and Erzurum. The agency said the bomb was planted by the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

The attack was the latest amid a sharp escalation of violence between Turkey’s security forces and the PKK and the collapse of a two-year peace process with the rebels. Dozens of people, mostly soldiers, have died since July in the renewed violence.

Turkish warplanes have raided PKK targets in Iraq and in southeast Turkey in tandem with airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria since late July.