Six people killed in Turkey’s car bomb attack blamed on PKK
A car bomb attack targeting a police station in volatile southeast Turkey has claimed the lives of four police officers and two civilians, including a young child.
According to local officials, the incident occurred at 1:10 p.m. local time (1010 GMT) on Monday after the car bomb was detonated at a police control post on the highway that links Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir and the town of Batman.
Reports said the blast also injured 25 people, including five police officers.
The explosion tore a large crater on the highway and completely destroyed the inside of the three-story police building.
The Turkish government blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) that has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in the country's southeast since 1984.
The recent bombing came days after a total of 44 soldiers, police officers and civilians were left dead and injured on Wednesday in three separate attacks blamed on the militant group.
Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale anti-PKK campaign in its southern border region over the past few months. The Turkish military has also been pounding the group’s positions in northern Iraq as well in breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.
Turkey’s operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in Suruc, which the Turkish government blamed on the Daesh Takfiri terrorist group.
After the bombing, the PKK militants, who accuse Ankara of supporting Daesh, engaged in a series of reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting Turkey’s military operations.
A shaky ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK that had stood since 2013 was declared null and void by the militants following the Turkish strikes against the group.
According to the latest toll provided by the state-run Anadolu news agency in July, more than 600 Turkish security forces and over 7,000 PKK militants have been killed since the collapse of the truce.
Over 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK first took up arms in 1984.
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