The attack targeted a traffic-police station on a highway linking the city of Diyarbakir and the town of Batman, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. The explosion tore a large crater on the highway and television footage showed a three-story building that appeared to have been gutted by the blast.
Officials blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers` Party, or PKK. Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus told reporters that a child — the offspring of one of the police officers — was among the dead.
Clashes between the PKK and Turkey`s security forces resumed last year after a tenuous cease-fire collapsed. The PKK has frequently targeted police or military with roadside explosives or car bombs.
Last week, a wave of PKK attacks targeting Turkish police and soldiers in the mainly Kurdish southeast region, including Diyarbakir, killed at least 12 people. PKK commander Cemil Bayik had threatened increased attacks on police last week, in comments carried by Kurdish and Turkish media.
Monday`s attack came on the day the PKK marks the start of its armed campaign in 1984 when there were attacks on paramilitary police forces in the two southeastern towns of Eruh and Semdinli.
Since hostilities with the PKK resumed last year, more than 600 Turkish security personnel and thousands of PKK militants have been killed, according to the Anadolu Agency. Human rights groups say hundreds of civilians have also died.
Turkey and its allies consider the PKK a terrorist organization.
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16:54
A car bomb attack near a traffic police station in the district of Cinar in Turkey`s southeastern Diyarbakir Province has killed five and injured more than 25, AzVision.az reports citing the Turkish Media.
Three of the killed and 11 of the injured are police officers.
Rescuers and ambulance crews are working on the scene.
Reportedly, the Kurdistan Workers` Party (PKK) terrorist group stands behind the explosion.
The conflict between Turkey and the PKK, which demands the creation of an independent Kurdish state, has continued for over 25 years and has claimed more than 40,000 lives.
The UN and the European Union list the PKK as a terrorist organization.
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15:46
Many people, including civilians, injured in the attack in Diyarbakir.
PKK terrorists attacked a traffic police station Monday with a bomb-laden vehicle in Turkey`s southeastern province of Diyarbakir, security sources said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on talking to the media, the source said that many people, including civilians, were injured in the attack on the Martyr Chief of Police Murat Ucar Regional Traffic Check Station Department along the Diyarbakir-Batman highway.
The wounded were taken to hospitals in Diyarbakir via ambulance.
There is a large hole visible in the highway from the explosion.
An operation was launched in the region to apprehend the attackers.
The PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU – resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.
Since then, more than 600 security personnel have been martyred and more than 7,000 PKK terrorists have been killed.
Turkey: 7 killed in car bomb attack targeting police - UPDATED
16 August 2016
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Kurdish rebels detonated a car bomb at a police station in southeast Turkey on Monday, killing five police officers and two civilians, officials said. At least 20 other people were wounded.
