Eleven Turkish police officers were killed and 70 people injured Friday in a auto bombing blamed on Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) rebels, as Turkey’s Army pressed an offensive against a Kurdish militia in neighbouring Syria.
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ANKARA: One police officer was killed and 25 people wounded in a auto bomb attack at a police headquarters in the town of Cizre in southeast Turkey on Friday, hospital sources said.
Friday’s (August 26) blast comes two days after US-backed Turkish special forces launched an incursion into Syria.
The government had said the PKK had targeted the convoy of Kemal Kilicdaroglu, leader of the secularist Republican People’s Party (CHP), who escaped unharmed.
As a result, Turkey has deployed tanks across the border to reclaim the ISIS-captured town of Jarablus and to prevent growing Syrian Kurdish militants linked to the PKK. Militants of the have carried out a string of vehicle bomb attacks on police and military in recent months.
Kuwaiti Emir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah sent a note of condolence to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in which he strongly condemned the terrorist attack targeting “innocent people” and contradicts with “all humanitarian values and doctrines of divine religions”.
There has been no immediate claim of responsibility, but state-run Anadolu Agency attributed the attack to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) – a listed terrorist organization believed to be involved in a series of attacks in the same region.
The PKK has clashed with Turkish police and military since a ceasefire ended in July 2015.
A day later, Turkey shelled Kurdish fighters in the area, saying they were failing to observe a deal with the U.S. to stop advancing west.
Turkish troops fired on YPG fighters south of Jarablus on Thursday, highlighting the cross-cutting of interests of two pivotal North Atlantic Treaty Organisation allies. More than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have died since the rebels took up arms in Turkey in 1984. “They kill women and children in an attempt to stop Turkey”, Işık said, adding that “the heinous” PKK even targets political party leaders. A Turkish human rights group said scores of civilians were killed in the operations.
It is proscribed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
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United States officials issued a statement critical of the PKK, calling it “disturbing” that they were indiscriminately targeting security personnel in southeast Turkey. This news story is related to Latest/145477-PKK-claims-deadly-suicide-bomb-attack-on-Turkish-police/ – breaking news, latest news, pakistan ne.
