A few hours later, another auto bomb exploded in the garden of the Elazig police station, killing three people and injuring at least 100 others.
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Separately, two police officers were injured in an attack by the PKK terrorist organization in southeastern Turkey’s Hakkari province early Thursday, a security source said.
Two of the attacks were auto bombings that hit police stations in eastern Turkey, while a third – a roadside blast – targeted a military vehicle carrying soldiers in the southeast of the country.
At least three police officers were killed, according to local Governor Murat Zorluoglu.
The government says US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, head of a large religious movement, was behind the attempted coup, a charge he denies.
Authorities said the suspect could not get close to the police station because of barricades and exploded the vehicle 40 meters from the facility.
Kurdish militants were suspected of carrying out the attack, according to state news agency Anadolu.
The three killed in Elazig were all police officers, he said, and so were 85 of the injured.
The group has frequently carried out attacks on police stations in Turkey´s largely Kurdish southeast in recent months. At least 14 of them were in serious condition.
The PKK – listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union – resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.
The PKK has waged an insurgency in Turkey since 1984.
The PKK, the Kurdish militant group was attributed by Turkish officials.
Turkey’s Radio and Television Supreme Council issued a temporary ban on visual coverage of the attack after an order from the prime minister’s office, Anadolu reported.
Van city in Eastern Turkey.
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The bloodshed comes in the week that the PKK – regarded as a terrorist organisation by Ankara and its Western allies – marks what is considered to be the 32nd anniversary of its armed rebellion against the Turkish state.
