A car bomb explosion followed by a shootout in front of a police headquarters in Diyarbakir province in southeast Turkey has left five people dead
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A car bomb explosion followed by a shootout in front of a police headquarters in Diyarbakir province in southeast Turkey has left five people dead and at least 36 injured.
Local media reported the deaths, which included that of a baby, occured when a nearby police accommodation building collapsed in the blast.
#BREAKING car bomb attack against Cinar police station #Diyarbakır #TwitterKurds #Turkey. Many casualties reported pic.twitter.com/quhtXMbbyf
— Hamosh (@Hamosh84) January 13, 2016
A government source says the attackers were Kurdish PKK fighters but that has not been confirmed.
Turkey has been on high alert since Tuesday’s suicide bombing in Istanbul which left 12 people dead, mostly German tourists. That attack has been blamed on ISIL militants by the Turkish government.
Counterterror operations have been intensified following recent attacks – some said to be by ISIL others by the PKK which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the U.S., the EU and Turkey.
Formed in 1978, the terrorist group has been fighting the Turkish government for an independent state until the early 2000’s. The group then shifted its goal to autonomy in predominately Kurdish inhabited regions of Turkey.