Car Bomb Kills 8 Police Officers in Turkish Border Town of Cizre Explosion hit a checkpoint 50 meters from a police station
http://www.wsj.com/articles/car-bomb-kills-8-police-in-southeast-turkey-1472195058
Kurdish militants attacked a police checkpoint in southeast Turkey with an explosives-laden truck on Friday, killing at least eight police officers and wounding 70 other people, the state-run news agency and Turkish officials said.
The attack struck the checkpoint some 50 meters from a main police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly-Kurdish Sirnak province that borders Syria, the Anadolu Agency reported.
Turkey’s Health Minister Recep Akdag didn’t confirm the death toll, but said 70 people were injured, four seriously.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack which was the latest in a string of bombings that have targeted police or military vehicles and installations. Authorities have blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, for previous attacks.
Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck. The three-story police station was gutted from the powerful explosion.
The Health Ministry said it had sent 12 ambulances and two helicopters to the site.
Violence between the PKK and the security forces resumed last year, after a fragile two-year peace process between the government and the militant group collapsed. Hundreds of security force members have been killed since.
Turkey has also seen a rise of deadly attacks that have been blamed on Islamic State militants, including a suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in southeast Turkey last week that killed 54 people and an attack on Istanbul’s main airport in June, which killed 44.
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