News / Turkey

Bombing kills one, injures 7 in Turkey’s Diyarbakir

Tuesday, 28 June 2016 1:10 PM [ Last Update: Tuesday, 28 June 2016 1:16 PM ]

A Turkish plainclothes police office walks on the site of a bomb explosion in Diyarbakir, Turkey, May 10, 2016. ©AFP

A car bomb explosion targeting a police vehicle in Turkey's southeastern province of Diyarbakir has left one officer dead and seven other people wounded.

The blast took place on Tuesday when the armored police vehicle was passing close to a state hospital in Diyarbakir’s Dicle district.

An unidentified security source said a police officer who suffered serious injuries died at the hospital, while another officer and six civilians were being treated for injuries. The explosion also damaged buildings in Dicle.

No individual or group has claimed responsibility for Tuesday’s bombing but Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency blamed the incident on the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) militant group, which has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region in southeastern Turkey since 1984.

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.

The photo shows smoke rising over the district of Sur in Diyarbakir, Turkey, February 3, 2016. ©AFP

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 in breach of the Arab country’s sovereignty.

Turkey’s operations began in the wake of a deadly July 2015 bombing in the southern town of Suruc, which the Turkish government blamed on the Takfiri Daesh 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 the Turkish military operations.

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