An attack with an explosives-laden truck on a police checkpoint in south-east Turkey has killed at least 11 police officers and wounded 78 other people.

The state-run Anadolu Agency reported that Kurdish militants were responsible for the attack on a checkpoint about 50 metres from a police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly-Kurdish Şırnak province that borders Syria.

Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck, while the three-story police station was gutted from the powerful explosion. The health ministry said it had sent 12 ambulances and two helicopters to the site.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which was the latest in a string of bombings targeting police or military vehicles and installations. Authorities have blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) for those attacks.

Violence between the PKK and the security forces resumed last year, after the collapse of a fragile two-year peace process between the government and the militant group. Hundreds of security force members have been killed since.



Turkey has also seen a rise of deadly attacks that have been blamed on Islamic State militants, including a suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in south-east Turkey last week that killed 54 people and an attack on Istanbul’s main airport in June, which killed 44.

Turkey sent tanks across the Syrian border this week to help Syrian rebels retake a key Isis-held town.

Since hostilities with the PKK resumed last summer, more than 600 Turkish security personnel and thousands of PKK militants have been killed, according to the Anadolu Agency. Human rights groups say hundreds of civilians have also been killed.

The PKK is considered a terror organisation by Turkey and its allies.

The attacks on police came as the country was still reeling from a violent coup attempt on 15 July that killed at least 270 people. The government has blamed the failed coup on the supporters of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen and has embarked on a sweeping crackdown on his followers.

On Thursday, Kurdish rebels opened fire at security forces protecting a convoy of vehicles carrying Turkey’s main opposition party leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, in the north-east, killing a soldier and wounding two others, officials said.</s>Story highlights Eleven police officers were killed, state media says

Kurdish militants claim responsibility

Turkey sent tanks into Syria on Wednesday

Turkey-Syria border (CNN) An explosion at a police checkpoint Friday in southeastern Turkey killed 11 police officers and injured at least 78 people, the country's semiofficial Anadolu news agency reports.

Attackers detonated a bomb-laden truck near the checkpoint in Cizre, Anadolu reported, citing the governor's officer in the province of Sirnak.

The injured included 75 officers and three civilians, Anadolu reported. Four of the injured were in critical condition, Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdag told CNN Turk.

The armed wing of the the PKK -- a militant Kurdish group that's labeled a terror group by many in the international community -- took credit Friday for the attack.

In an online statement, it promised to give more details Saturday on what it called a "comprehensive action took place to kill dozens of policemen by our brave team in Cizre."</s>PKK suicide bombing kills 11 officers – Attack comes two days after Turkish offensive in Syria

ISTANBUL: The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) yesterday claimed a suicide truck bombing on a police building in Turkey’s southeast that killed 11 officers and wounded dozens more. The blast came two days after the Turkish army launched an offensive in Syria that the government says is not only aimed against Islamic State (IS) jihadists but also a Syrian Kurdish militia detested by Ankara.

The blast tore the facade off the headquarters of the Turkish riot police in the town of Cizre, a bastion of PKK support just north of the Syrian border. The local governor’s office said 11 officers were killed and 78 people injured, three of them civilians. Four people were said to be in critical condition. The state-run Anadolu news agency said the explosion took place 50 meters from the building, at a control post.

The PKK said it carried out the assault in retaliation for the “continued isolation” of the group’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan and the “lack of information” about his welfare. Cizre, a majority Kurdish town, has been badly hit by renewed violence between the PKK and government forces since the collapse of a ceasefire last year. Turkish security forces have been hit by near daily PKK attacks since a two-and-a-half year truce with the state collapsed in July 2015, leaving hundreds of police officers and soldiers dead.

Turkey’s operation in Syria aims to push both IS and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia that is fighting the jihadists out of the border region. Ankara considers the YPG, which has links to the PKK, as a terror group bent on carving out an autonomous Kurdish region on Turkey’s border. On Friday, the army sent four more tanks over the border, according to an AFP photographer at Karkamis on the Turkish side of the frontier.

Kurdish activists have accused Turkey of being more intent on preventing Syrian Kurds creating a stronghold than fighting IS jihadists. But Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on Friday denounced as a “bare-faced lie” suggestions in Western media that the Syria operation was singling out Kurds. “They either know nothing about the world or else their job is to report a bare-faced lie,” he said. Ankara’s hostility to the Syrian Kurdish fighters has put it at odds with its NATO ally, the United States, which supports them in the fight against IS. On Wednesday, Turkish tanks and fighter jets helped pro-Turkish rebels rout IS from the town of Jarabulus, on which the YPG appeared to have designs.

On Thursday, Turkey shelled Kurdish fighters in the area, saying they were failing to observe a deal with the US to stop advancing west into IS-held territory. Anadolu quoted security sources as saying the military would continue to intervene against the Syrian Kurdish fighters until they began to retreat. In a separate incident on the border, three Turkish soldiers were injured by mortar shells fired from Syria that landed in Yayladagi district, Dogan news agency reported. The agency said there had been clashes between local Turkmen and Syrian regime forces in Latakia, from where the shells were fired.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin-who until late June had been locked in a bitter feud over the shooting down of a Russian war plane-agreed to step up efforts to ensure aid reached Syria’s conflict-torn northern Aleppo province. The two also emphasized the need to fight “all terror groups” in Syria, Anadolu agency said. Visiting Turkey on Wednesday, US Vice President Joe Biden said Washington had warned YPG not to move west of the Euphrates river after recent advances, or risk losing American support.

Murat Karayilan, one of the top Iraq-based leaders of the PKK, accused Turkey of doing a deal with IS to vacate Jarabulus. “ISIS has never abandoned a town in one day without putting up a fight,” he told the pro-PKK Firat news agency, using another acronym for IS. The PKK has kept up its assaults following the unsuccessful July 15 coup by rogue elements in the military aimed at unseating Erdogan. The government for its part has vowed to press on with the campaign to eradicate the PKK from eastern Turkey.

Over the past year, the military has conducted operations and imposed punishing curfews in towns and cities in the southeast that have claimed civilian lives, including in Cizre. Over 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK first took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out an independent state for Turkey’s Kurdish minority. It is proscribed as a terrorist group by Turkey, the European Union and the United States. – AFP</s>At least 11 police officers were killed and 70 injured when suspected Kurdish militants attacked a police checkpoint in south-east Turkey with an explosives-laden truck.

Turkey on Friday vowed to retaliate. 'We will give those vile (attackers) the answer they deserve,' Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told a news conference in Istanbul. 'No terrorist organisation can hold Turkey captive.'

The attack struck the checkpoint some 50 yards from a main police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly Kurdish Sirnak province which borders Syria, the Anadolu Agency reported.

The three-storey police station was destroyed in the powerful explosion.

News channel NTV showed large plumes of smoke billowing from the site, which it said was a police checkpoint.

At least two of the wounded were in a critical condition, an official said. The Health Ministry said it had sent 12 ambulances and two helicopters to the scene.

State-run Anadolu Agency blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been involved in almost daily clashes in the region since last July, when a ceasefire between it and the government collapsed.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. More than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have died since the rebels took up arms in 1984.

On Thursday Interior Minister Efkan Ala accused the group of attacking a convoy carrying the main opposition party leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The government has blamed the PKK for a series of attacks this month in the southeast. The group has claimed responsibility for at least one attack, on a police station.</s>An attack with an explosives-laden truck on a police checkpoint in south-east Turkey has killed at least 11 police officers and wounded 78 other people.

The state-run Anadolu Agency reported that Kurdish militants were responsible for the attack on a checkpoint about 50 metres from a police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly-Kurdish Şırnak province that borders Syria.

Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck, while the three-story police station was gutted from the powerful explosion. The health ministry said it had sent 12 ambulances and two helicopters to the site.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which was the latest in a string of bombings targeting police or military vehicles and installations. Authorities have blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) for those attacks.

Violence between the PKK and the security forces resumed last year, after the collapse of a fragile two-year peace process between the government and the militant group. Hundreds of security force members have been killed since.



Turkey has also seen a rise of deadly attacks that have been blamed on Islamic State militants, including a suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in south-east Turkey last week that killed 54 people and an attack on Istanbul’s main airport in June, which killed 44.

Turkey sent tanks across the Syrian border this week to help Syrian rebels retake a key Isis-held town.

Since hostilities with the PKK resumed last summer, more than 600 Turkish security personnel and thousands of PKK militants have been killed, according to the Anadolu Agency. Human rights groups say hundreds of civilians have also been killed.

The PKK is considered a terror organisation by Turkey and its allies.

The attacks on police came as the country was still reeling from a violent coup attempt on 15 July that killed at least 270 people. The government has blamed the failed coup on the supporters of US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gülen and has embarked on a sweeping crackdown on his followers.

On Thursday, Kurdish rebels opened fire at security forces protecting a convoy of vehicles carrying Turkey’s main opposition party leader, Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, in the north-east, killing a soldier and wounding two others, officials said.</s>The outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party on Friday claimed a suicide truck bombing on a police building in Turkey’s southeast that killed 11 officers and wounded dozens more.

 The blast came two days after the Turkish army launched an offensive in Syria that the government

 says is not only aimed against Islamic State jihadists but also a Syrian Kurdish militia detested by Ankara.

 The blast tore the facade off the headquarters of the Turkish riot police in the town of Cizre, a bastion of PKK support just north of the Syrian border.

 The local governor’s office said 11 officers were killed and 78 people injured, three of them civilians. Four people were said to be in critical condition.

 The state-run Anadolu news agency said the explosion took place 50 metres from the building, at a control post.

 The PKK said it carried out the assault in retaliation for the ‘continued isolation’ of the group’s jailed leader Abdullah Ocalan and the ‘lack of information’ about his welfare.

 Cizre, a majority Kurdish town, has been badly hit by renewed violence between the PKK and government forces since the collapse of a ceasefire last year.

 Turkish security forces have been hit by near daily PKK attacks since a two-and-a-half year truce with the state collapsed in July 2015, leaving hundreds of police officers and soldiers dead.

 Turkey’s operation in Syria aims to push both IS and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units militia that is fighting the jihadists out of the border region.

 Ankara considers the YPG, which has links to the PKK, as a terror group bent on carving out an autonomous Kurdish region on Turkey’s border.

 On Friday, the army sent four more tanks over the border, according to an AFP photographer at Karkamis on the Turkish side of the frontier.

 Kurdish activists have accused Turkey of being more intent on preventing Syrian Kurds creating a stronghold than fighting IS jihadists.

 But prime minister Binali Yildirim on Friday denounced as a ‘bare-faced lie’ suggestions in Western media that the Syria operation was singling out Kurds.

 ‘They either know nothing about the world or else their job is to report a bare-faced lie,’ he said.

 Ankara’s hostility to the Syrian Kurdish fighters has put it at odds with its NATO ally, the United States, which supports them in the fight against IS.

 On Wednesday, Turkish tanks and fighter jets helped pro-Turkish rebels rout IS from the town of Jarabulus, on which the YPG appeared to have designs.

 On Thursday, Turkey shelled Kurdish fighters in the area, saying they were failing to observe a deal with the US to stop advancing west into IS-held territory.

 Anadolu quoted security sources as saying the military would continue to intervene against the Syrian Kurdish fighters until they began to retreat.

 In a separate incident on the border, three Turkish soldiers were injured by mortar shells fired from Syria that landed in Yayladagi district, Dogan news agency reported.

 The agency said there had been clashes between local Turkmen and Syrian regime forces in Latakia, from where the shells were fired.</s>Attackers detonated a bomb-laden truck near the checkpoint in Cizre, Anadolu reported, citing the governor's officer in the province of Sirnak.

The injured included 75 officers and three civilians, Anadolu reported. Four of the injured were in critical condition, Turkish Health Minister Recep Akdag told CNN Turk.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. The Sirnak governor's office told Anadolu they blame the PKK -- a militant Kurdish group that's labeled a terror group by many in the international community. It said a car bomb was detonated at the police checkpoint.

"Turkey will never allow these terrorists to realize their dirty aims," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday in a statement. "There is no question that our fight with terror will succeed."</s>A suicide truck bombing at a police headquarters in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast killed at least 11 and wounded dozens on Friday, two days after Turkey launched an incursion against Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters in Syria.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said there was no doubt that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, was responsible for the attack in Sirnak province, which borders Syria and Iraq.

The provincial governor's office said 11 police officers were killed and 78 people, three of them civilians, wounded. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The bombing in the town of Cizre was the latest in a series of attacks since a ceasefire with the PKK collapsed more than a year ago, and comes as Turkey tries to recover from a failed July 15 military coup.

READ MORE:

 * Turkish tanks roll into Syria

 * Blast kills dozens at wedding

 * Turkey has detained 40,000 since coup

 * Seven die from car bomb

More than 1700 military personnel have been removed for their alleged role in the putsch, including some 40 per cent of admirals and generals, raising concern about the NATO member's ability to protect itself as it battles Islamic State in Syria and Kurdish militants at home.

At a news conference in Istanbul, Yildirim said Turkey had opened a war on all terrorist groups. His deputy, Numan Kurtulmus, said on Twitter that Islamic State, the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia were all attacking Turkey to take advantage of last month's coup attempt.

"Turkey is in an intense fight against terrorist organisations ... The PKK/YPG and Islamic State seized the July 15 coup attempt as an opportunity," Kurtulmus wrote.

Large plumes of smoke billowed from the blast site in Cizre, footage on CNN Turk showed. The broadcaster said a dozen ambulances and two helicopters had been sent to the scene.

Photographs broadcast by private channel NTV showed a large three-storey building reduced to its concrete shell, with no walls or windows, and surrounded by grey rubble.

On Thursday (local time), Interior Minister Efkan Ala accused the PKK of attacking a convoy carrying the country's main opposition party leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The government has blamed the PKK for a series of attacks this month in the southeast. The group has claimed responsibility for at least one attack on a police station.</s>ANKARA/KARKAMIS, Turkey, Aug 26 (Reuters) - A suicide truck bombing at a police headquarters in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast killed at least 11 and wounded dozens on Friday, two days after Turkey launched an incursion against Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters in Syria.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said there was no doubt that the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy, was responsible for the attack in Sirnak province, which borders Syria and Iraq.

The provincial governor's office said 11 police officers were killed and 78 people, three of them civilians, wounded. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The bombing in the town of Cizre was the latest in a series of attacks since a ceasefire with the PKK collapsed more than a year ago, and comes as Turkey tries to recover from a failed July 15 military coup.

More than 1,700 military personnel have been removed for their alleged role in the putsch, including some 40 percent of admirals and generals, raising concern about the NATO member's ability to protect itself as it battles Islamic State in Syria and Kurdish militants at home.

At a news conference in Istanbul, Yildirim said Turkey had opened a war on all terrorist groups. His deputy, Numan Kurtulmus, said on Twitter that Islamic State, the PKK and the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia were all attacking Turkey to take advantage of last month's coup attempt.

"Turkey is in an intense fight against terrorist organisations ... The PKK/YPG and Islamic State seized the July 15 coup attempt as an opportunity," Kurtulmus wrote.

Large plumes of smoke billowed from the blast site in Cizre, footage on CNN Turk showed. The broadcaster said a dozen ambulances and two helicopters had been sent to the scene.

Photographs broadcast by private channel NTV showed a large three-storey building reduced to its concrete shell, with no walls or windows, and surrounded by grey rubble.

Turkish special forces, tanks and warplanes launched their first major incursion into Syria on Wednesday in support of Syrian rebels, in an operation President Tayyip Erdogan has said is aimed both at driving Islamic State away from the border area and preventing territorial gains by the YPG.

Turkey views the YPG as an extension of the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the United States and the European Union. More than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have died since the rebels took up arms in Turkey in 1984.

Turkish troops fired on U.S.-backed YPG fighters in northern Syria on Thursday - a confrontation that highlights the cross-cutting of interests of two pivotal NATO allies.

Also on Thursday, Interior Minister Efkan Ala accused the PKK of attacking a convoy carrying the country's main opposition party leader, Kemal Kilicdaroglu.

The government has blamed the PKK for a series of attacks this month in the southeast. The group has claimed responsibility for at least one attack on a police station.

Last week Erdogan accused followers of a U.S.-based Islamic cleric he blames for the July 15 coup attempt of being complicit in attacks by Kurdish militants.

The cleric, Fethullah Gulen, has denied any involvement in and denounced the coup plot.</s>ANKARA, Turkey — Kurdish militants on Friday attacked a police checkpoint in southeast Turkey with an explosives-laden truck, killing at least 11 police officers and wounding 78 other people, officials and the state-run news agency said.

The attack struck the checkpoint 50 meters (yards) from a main police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly Kurdish Sirnak province that borders Syria, the Anadolu Agency reported.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which was the latest in a string of bombings targeting police or military vehicles and facilities. Authorities have blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, for those attacks. Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim confirmed the death toll, saying it was a suicide attack carried out with an explosives-laden truck. He vowed to “destroy the terrorists.”(nypost.com)…[+]
Eight Turkish police officers are killed and 40 are injured in a bombing at a police checkpoint in the town of Cizre, with the PKK believed to be responsible.