Earlier, a handmade bomb thrown at a military convoy killed three military members and injured six civilians in Biltis, hours after three people, including a police officer, died in a auto bomb attack in the city of Van. Also on Thursday, a village guard was shot dead and a soldier was injured in nearby Nazar, according to the country’s state-run news agency Anadolu.
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Van Governor Ibrahim Tasyapan said the PKK was behind the attack, and that police had apprehended a suspect, Anadolu reported.
Turkish officials blame the banned militant group Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, for the attacks.
In Turkey, the wave of attacks come as government is focused on a clampdown on suspected followers of a movement led by USA -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom the government accuses of orchestrating a failed military coup last month that killed at least 270 people.
FETO is the term Ankara uses for Gulen’s network.
The first attack, a vehicle bomb in the eastern Elazig province outside a police headquarters, claimed three police officers’ lives. At least 73 other people – 53 civilians and 20 police officers – were wounded, officials said. And in Van province, a auto bomb exploded – also near a police station.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on live television there had been an attack on a police station in Van but did not elaborate.
Then there was a third blast: “a roadside bomb that detonated as an armored military vehicle was passing in eastern Bitlis province”, Peter says.
Two auto bombs targeting police stations in Turkey this week killed at least six people and wounded at least 219 others, officials said Thursday.
The White House condemned the attacks in a statement on Thursday.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdo?an has denounced a senior United States official’s visit to Kurdish-controlled northern Syria, underlining the “mistrust” the visit has created in Ankara over the nature of Turkey’s “partnership” with the U.S.
Tens of thousands have been killed in the conflict.
At least four soldiers were killed and seven wounded in that attack, the AP says.
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Erdogan on Thursday again called on U.S. President Barack Obama to extradite Gulen. US officials say they need to see clear evidence of the cleric’s involvement. “I have asked him again after the latest events”, Erdogan said.
