Turkey: 5 killed in attack on police station

Five people were killed and 39 others wounded in a car bomb attack on a police station in Cinar, a town in Turkey’s southeastern Diyarbakir Province, on Thursday.

Two people were killed in an initial car bomb attack by members of the outlawed Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK) and three more lost their lives when a damaged building collapsed, the office of the governor of Diyarbakir Province said in a statement.

Reports said the militants armed with rifles first exploded a car bomb in front of the entrance to the building and then opened fire on the security forces.

The wounded were taken to a hospital in the town.

A baby was among the five fatalities, and the 39 injured include six police officers, the report said.

Police immediately launched an extensive operation across the town to capture the militants.

The PKK negotiated a ceasefire with the government in 2013, but the truce fell apart in the wake of a suicide bomb attack in the border town of Suruc in Sanliurfa Province on July 20, 2015. The attack left 34 pro-Kurdish and left-wing activists dead.

Thursday’s attack came two days after a suicide bombing in central Istanbul killed ten German tourists and injured about 17 others. The government blamed the attack in Istanbul on the Islamic State group, an arch foe of the PKK.