News / Turkey

Car bomb attack kills 1, wounds 2 in southeastern Turkey

Thursday, 23 June 2016 10:17 PM [ Last Update: Friday, 24 June 2016 1:37 AM ]

Turkish police officers walk at the site of a bomb attack in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, on March 31, 2016. ©AFP

At least one civilian has lost his life and two police officers sustained injuries when a bomb explosion struck a gendarme outpost in Turkey’s troubled southeastern province of Mardin.

Security sources, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the act of violence took place in the town of Omerli, located some 500 kilometers (310 miles) east of the capital Ankara, on Thursday when Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militants detonated a car rigged with explosives by remote control.

The civilian was reportedly a truck driver who was passing by in his vehicle.

The development came on the same day as a police sergeant was killed during a counter-terrorism operation in the eastern Turkish province of Bitlis.

Security personnel were conducting an operation along the highway linking the cities of Tatvan and Van on Thursday, when PKK terrorists armed with long-barreled rifles opened fire, killing the sergeant.

Meanwhile, the Turkish General Staff announced in a statement that army soldiers had destroyed a large field of marijuana plants as well as two improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in the Lice district of the southeastern province of Diyarbakir.

Turkish authorities also declared a curfew in some 39 villages of the Lice, Hazro and Kocaköy districts of Diyarbakir province early on Thursday.

*A flag of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) hangs on a barricade in the Sur district of Diyarbakir province, southeastern Turkey, on November 18, 2015. ©AFP*

A shaky ceasefire between the PKK and the Turkish government collapsed in July 2015, and attacks on Turkish security forces have soared ever since.

Ankara has been engaged in a large-scale campaign against the PKK in its southern border region in the past few months. The Turkish military has also been conducting offensives against PKK positions in northern Iraq and Syria.

The operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in the southern Turkish town of Suruc. More than 30 people died in the attack, 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 supposed reprisal attacks against Turkish police and security forces, prompting the Turkish military operations.

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