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Car Bomb Hits Police Station in Southeast Turkey, 11 Killed | ASHARQ AL-AWSAT English Archive 2005 -2017
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Car Bomb Hits Police Station in Southeast Turkey, 11 Killed


A car bomb attack hit a police station at a town in the southeastern Turkish province of Mardin on Wednesday, wounding many people, security sources said.

The attack comes a day after a car bomb hit a police vehicle in Istanbul, killing 11 people during the morning rush hour.

The Anadolu Agency said several ambulances have been sent to the scene of the blast in the town of Midyat, in southern Mardin province.

The blast destroyed the facade of a five-story building, damaged other buildings, and sent a plume of thick black smoke rising over the area, footage from the Dogan news agency showed.

Clashes broke out between the members of the security forces and Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants after the explosion, the security sources said. The PKK has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy in the southeast and violence has spiraled since a ceasefire collapsed almost a year ago.

Mardin, where government forces are battling Kurdish militants, has endured similar attacks in the past months.

In May, three people were killed in a car bombing by Kurdish rebels against a gendarmerie station in Midyat.

In April, a soldier was killed and six others were wounded in a car bomb attack against their outpost in Mardin.

Turkey has been hit by a series of attacks in the past year, especially after a fragile peace between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, and the government collapsed last July. The ISIS group has also been blamed for a series of deadly bombings in Turkey, which is part of the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS.

There has been no claim of responsibility for Tuesday’s attack in Istanbul, in which a car bomb ripped through a police bus during the morning rush hour. But Kurdish militants have staged similar attacks on the security forces in the recent past, including in Istanbul and the capital Ankara.