Media coverage of the Elazig attack has been banned in Turkey. Investigations have found that Gulen, a preacher who lives in the Poconos, and FETO manage a unsafe and secretive illegal network masked as humanitarian organizations.
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Five police officers and three civilians, including a child, were killed on Monday in a powerful vehicle bomb explosion outside a police station near Turkey’s southeastern city of Diyarbakir. Kurdish rebels detonated a vehicle bomb at the police station killing two police officers and a young child, officials said.
Video footage showed a large plume of smoke rising from the area. At least 73 other people – 53 civilians and 20 police officers – were wounded, officials said.
“We have seen once more … that the PKK is a bloody organisation and does not hesitate to kill the people it says it is fighting for”, he said.
The first attack targeted a police station in the eastern city of Van, killing one police officer and two civilians.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the followers of Fethullah Gulen, a Muslim cleric living in exile in Pennsylvania, the United States, for the coup attempt and demanded his extradition.
Turkey has weathered a string of terror attacks over the past year as it faces the twin threats of ISIS and Kurdish militants.
Authorities have arrested or suspended tens of thousands of police, troops, officials, judges and bureaucrats it says are linked to Gulen’s movement.
Several thousand companies and institutions suspected of having financed Gulen have been shut.
The banking investigators were detained on suspicion of making “irregular investigations” into the account of a government-related foundation and those of business people, including targets close to Erdogan, NTV said.
Erdogan on Thursday again called on U.S. President Barack Obama to extradite Gulen. Washington has said it would need evidence of the cleric’s involvement, and says the regular extradition process must be allowed to take its course. “I have asked him again after the latest events”, Erdogan said.
The PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the US and European Union – resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.
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The latest string of attacks came after five policemen and three civilians were killed in a auto bombing near the main southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Monday (15 August), the day seen as the 32nd anniversary of the launch of the armed rebellion.
