Turkey: Blast in Southeast Kills Four, Bomb Attack in Istanbul

A car bomb blast in Istanbul and an explosion in Sarikamis district, as Turkey reels under a series of blasts.

Turkish police officers secure the area at the site of a car bomb blast in Istanbul. (Photo: AP 

An explosion ripped through a village in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast in the Sarikamis district, about 25 km from the region’s biggest city of Diyarbakir. Four suspected bomb makers were killed and 17 people are reported to have been wounded. According to the Interior Ministry, the blast occurred as Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants loaded explosives onto a truck.

Four of the wounded are said to be in critical condition. Witnesses reported hearing the loud explosion from miles away. However, the Interior Ministry has not specified what exactly has caused the blast, nor has it been made clear whether the casualties were civilians or Kurdistan Workers Party militants.

The explosion follows a car bomb attack near a military facility earlier in the day in an Istanbul suburb which wounded seven people. Furthermore, a car bombing occurred in Diyarbakir on Tuesday which targeted the police and killed three people.

Turkey has been hit by a series of bombings this year, including two suicide attacks in tourist areas of Istanbul blamed on Islamic State and two car bombings in the capital Ankara, which killed a total of 66 people and were claimed by a PKK offshoot.