Kurdish rebels detonated a car bomb at a police station in Turkey, then attacked it with rocket launchers and firearms, killing six people including civilians, officials said today.
Thirty-nine other people were injured. The attack late yesterday targeted the police station in the town of Cinar, in the mostly Kurdish Diyarbakir province, and police lodgings located at the building, the Diyarbakir governor's office said. The force of the blast caused a house near the police station to collapse.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said one police officer and five civilians were killed while 39 people were injured, including six police officers. According to the private Dogan news agency the dead included the wife of a policeman and a 5-month-old baby who were killed at the police lodgings and two children who died in the collapsed house.
Another police station was attacked with rocket launchers in Midyat town, in the province of Mardin in what appeared to be a simultaneous assault, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. No casualties were reported there. The explosion caused extensive damage, affecting buildings two or three blocks away from the police station.
Windows were blown off and shop shutters were folded in from the force of the blast. The governor's office said the security forces responded to the attack, but it was not clear if there were any casualties among the rebels.
The attack came a day after a suicide bomber set off an explosion in Istanbul's Sultanahmet district, just steps away from the landmark Blue Mosque, killing 10 German tourists. Turkish officials say the bomber, a Syrian born in 1988, was affiliated with the Islamic State group.
Hundreds of people gathered at the site of that attack today, to lay flowers and hold a minute of silence.
