Turkey car bomb attack kills two police, wounds 35, security sources

A car bomb and rocket attack by Kurdish militants in Turkey killed two police officers and wounded 35 people in the southeastern province of Mardin on Friday (March 4), security sources told Reuters.

The attack by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants, caused significant damage to a traffic police station and neighboring houses in the town of Nusaybin, near the Syrian border, at around 6 a.m. they said.

Security force reinforcements, as well as emergency services, were sent to the area, the sources said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A ceasefire between the PKK and the state collapsed last July and attacks on Turkey’s security forces have since increased amid a surge in violence in the predominantly Kurdish southeast that has killed hundreds of people.

Violence has also increased elsewhere in Turkey. A suicide car bombing targeting military buses in Ankara killed 29 people last month.

The government said that attack was carried out by a member of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia with help from the PKK.

Turkey has also become a target for Islamic State militants, who are blamed for three suicide bombings – one last year in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border and another in the capital, Ankara, and one in Istanbul in January. Those attacks killed more than 140 people.