ANKARA, Turkey -- A Kurdish suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden truck into a checkpoint near a police station Friday in southeast Turkey, killing at least 11 police officers and wounding 78 other people, the prime minister said.

The attack struck the checkpoint 50 yards from a main police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly Kurdish Sirnak province that borders Syria. Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck and the three-story police station gutted from the explosion.

Rebels linked to the Kurdistan Workers' Party claimed the attack -- the latest in a string of bombings by the group targeting police or military vehicles and facilities.

"No terrorist organization can take the Turkish Republic hostage," he told reporters in Istanbul. "We will give these scoundrels every response they deserve."

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said, "This attack, which comes at a time when Turkey is engaged in an intense struggle against terrorist organizations both within and outside its borders, only serves to increase our determination as a country and a nation."

Turkey has sent tanks across the Syrian border after weeks of deadly attacks by the Kurdistan Workers' Party and the Islamic State extremist group. The operation aims to help Syrian rebels retake Jarablus, a key Islamic State-held border town, and to contain the expansion of Syrian Kurdish militias linked to the Workers' Party.

In a statement on the website of the Workers' Party's military wing, the militant group said the Cizre attack was in retaliation for jailed Workers' Party leader Abdullah Ocalan's "isolation" on a prison island off Istanbul. The rebel leader has been denied visits since April 2015, as a peace process between the Workers' Party and the government began to falter.

Violence between the Workers' Party and the security forces resumed last year after the collapse the two-year peace process in July. Hundreds of security force members, militants and civilians have been killed since.

At the same time, Turkey has been afflicted by deadly attacks blamed on Islamic State militants, including a suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in southeast Turkey last week that killed 54 people, and an attack on Istanbul's main airport in June that killed 44 people.

According to the Sirnak governor's office, three of those wounded in Friday's attack were civilians.

Cizre was placed under 24-hour curfew for several weeks earlier this year as the security forces opened operations to root out Kurdish militants.

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

The Workers' Party is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its allies. Some 40,000 people have been killed since the conflict started in 1984.

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

On Thursday, Kurdish rebels opened fire at security forces protecting a convoy carrying Turkey's main opposition party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the northeast, killing a soldier and wounding two others, officials said. The rebel statement Friday said the target of the attack was Turkey's security forces, not Kilicdaroglu.

Information for this article was contributed by Dusan Stojanovic and Cinar Kiper of The Associated Press.</s>ISTANBUL (Reuters) - Suspected Kurdish militants fired rockets at the airport in Turkey’s main southeastern city of Diyarbakir on Saturday, sending passengers and staff scrambling for shelter, Dogan news agency said, but there were no immediate reports of casualties.

Four rockets were fired at a police checkpoint outside the VIP lounge, and passengers and staff were taken inside the terminal building for safety, the private news agency said. The attack happened not long before midnight (5.00 p.m. ET) on Saturday.

Broadcaster NTV said the rockets landed on wasteland nearby. There were no casualties and no disruption to flights, Diyarbakir governor Huseyin Aksoy told the news channel.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Diyarbakir is the main city in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast, where Kurdish militants have waged a three-decade insurgency. The attack comes days after Turkey launched a military incursion into Syria aimed at driving back Islamic State and preventing territorial gains by Kurdish fighters.

Rebels supported by Turkey fought Kurdish-backed forces in northern Syria on Saturday, and Ankara said it had launched air strikes against both Kurdish militia fighters and Islamic State.

Turkey fears Kurdish militia fighters will fill the void as Islamic State is pushed back. It wants to stop Kurdish forces gaining control of a continuous stretch of Syrian territory on its frontier, which it fears could deepen the insurgency by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants on its own soil.

Diyarbakir airport largely handles domestic flights and is served by carriers including Turkish Airlines.

The PKK, which first took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984, is considered a terrorist organization by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. A ceasefire collapsed just over a year ago, and violence has since surged.</s>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 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."

"No terrorist organization can take the Turkish Republic hostage," he told reporters in Istanbul. "We will give these scoundrels every response they deserve."

Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck. The three-story police station was gutted from the powerful explosion.

According to Sirnak governor's office, three of the wounded were civilians. The Health Ministry sent 12 ambulances and two helicopters to the site.

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, militants and even civilians 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 southeast Turkey last week that killed 54 people and an attack on Istanbul's main airport in June that killed 44 people.

Turkey sent tanks across the Syrian border this week to help Syrian rebels retake a key IS-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 organization by Turkey and its allies.

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

On Thursday, Kurdish rebels opened fire at security forces protecting a convoy carrying Turkey's main opposition party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the northeast, killing a soldier and wounding two others, officials said.</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, 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 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.

 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 US-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 US-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.

 (Updated)</s>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 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."

"No terrorist organization can take the Turkish Republic hostage," he told reporters in Istanbul. "We will give these scoundrels every response they deserve."

Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck. The three-story police station was gutted from the powerful explosion.

According to Sirnak governor's office, three of the wounded were civilians. The Health Ministry sent 12 ambulances and two helicopters to the site.

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, militants and even civilians 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 southeast Turkey last week that killed 54 people and an attack on Istanbul's main airport in June that killed 44 people.

Turkey sent tanks across the Syrian border this week to help Syrian rebels retake a key IS-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 organization by Turkey and its allies.

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

On Thursday, Kurdish rebels opened fire at security forces protecting a convoy carrying Turkey's main opposition party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the northeast, killing a soldier and wounding two others, officials said.</s>Turkish tanks have moved rapidly through the Syrian town of Jarablus on Wednesday, ousting Islamic State from one of its last border strongholds – but the most important outcome in Ankara’s eyes was beating the US-backed Kurdish fighters in a race to seize the surrounding area.



In a pointed concession to Turkey, the US vice president Joe Biden demanded that Kurdish forces, who had been a central US proxy in the battle against the terrorist group, “move back across the Euphrates river”, to the east of Jarablus. He also said that the Kurds, who have won a series of recent battles against Isis, would be abandoned if they advanced. US jets gave cover to the Turkish push, one of the first times in the war that the two allies have conducted a joint operation.

“They cannot, will not, under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment,” Biden said in Ankara during a visit to reset ties with Turkey, which had been strained since the failed coup attempt in July.

The Turkish incursion, which was supported by Syrian rebels, was the largest into Syria in the five-year civil war and came after months of gains by Kurds in the north which had seriously tested relations with Washington and transformed the once-dormant border into one of the war’s most important battle zones.



Bystanders throughout much of the war, Kurdish groups in Syria’s north-east had made swift gains after Russia’s intervention to reinforce President Bashar al-Assad. At the same time, the Kurds had been pivotal to US efforts to break the grip of Isis in the area, being used as a proxy force by US trainers and given air support by fighter jets.

The development incensed Ankara, which insists that the Kurds were using the war to advance a de facto autonomous region aligned with the aims of a four-decade-long insurrection being waged by Kurdish groups in Turkey’s south-east. Turkish officials have repeatedly pointed to Kurdish manoeuvres along its 500-mile frontier as evidence of a plan to move Arabs from the area and create a buffer allowing the Kurds to consolidate influence in the area.

In recent months, Turkey has stepped up its support for Syrian rebels battling both Isis and the Assad regime. The influence of rebel groups in the north had previously waned under Russian airstrikes and the creep of jihadi groups, who had gradually taken the ascendancy in key campaigns, such as the fight for Aleppo.

A Turkish move to re-arm Syrian rebels, including jihadis, earlier this month had led to the siege of Aleppo imposed by Assad loyalists being broken and a supply line being reopened.

Since then, Turkey has stepped up efforts to deter the Kurds from making further advances and to keep open access to Arab rebel areas.

At the same time, Ankara has set aside a feud with Russia, which shares its insistence that Syria’s current borders be preserved. Recent public statements about talking to the Syrian regime give weight to a growing view in the region that Turkey views keeping Syria intact as a higher priority than removing the Syrian leader – a key goal of the Turkish leadership for the past five years.

Biden’s demands that the US-backed Kurds go no further is likely to reassure Ankara, which had publicly denounced Washington’s efforts against Isis, even as a Kurdish-led force, comprised of some Arab units, pushed Isis from the city of Minbij earlier this month, splintering a supply line between the town of al-Bab, near Aleppo, and Raqqa to the east, which remains one of the group’s two most important hubs.

However, the effect on the US-Kurdish relationship is less clear. The Syrian Kurdish political arm, the PYD, said in response to the campaign that “Turkey will be defeated just like [Isis]”.</s>Turkey clearing borders of militants to prevent more migrants - PM

ISTANBUL, Aug 26 (Reuters) - Turkey aims to clear its borders of Islamic State and other militant groups to prevent a new flow of migrants and will continue operations until the nation's security is guaranteed, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said on Friday.

Yildirim also told a news conference that the outlawed Kurdish militant group PKK was behind Friday's bombing of a police headquarters in Turkey's southeast, the latest in a string of attacks that the authorities have blamed on the group.

The attack came two days after Turkey launched an incursion into Syria against Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters there.</s>It is hard to anticipate whether Turkey’s unprecedented military incursion into Syria this week will change the dynamics of the multiple wars that have ravaged the region and put civilians through hell. If things already seemed complicated in the Middle East, they may have just become even more so. What started on Wednesday ranks as the largest Turkish military operation inside Syrian territory since the civil war began five years ago. A dozen tanks, reportedly followed by a bus transporting Syrian rebels, rolled into northern Syria to drive Islamic State forces from the town of Jarablus, one of their last footholds on the Turkish-Syrian border. Today Turkey sent more tanks in and told the YPG Kurdish armed group it had one week to retreat from the border areas.

Western anti-Isis coalition forces facilitated Operation Euphrates Shield with air strikes. It came days after a terrorist attack killed 54 people at a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep, close to the Syrian border – highlighting both how exposed Turkey has become to the insurgency and the multiple pressures the Kurds face.

Although Turkey carried out this operation with US back-up, its priority – evident in other recent foreign manoeuvrings, such as detente with Russia and overtures to the Syrian president, having previously urged him to quit – is to curtail the territorial ambitions of Kurdish combatants, some of which happen to be US proxies in the war against Isis. Turkey is in effect deploying forces in Syria with US support, with the aim of pushing back Kurdish groups that the US also supports. The US has equipped and trained local forces to fight Isis, under the label “Syrian Democratic Forces”. They are dominated by Kurds, but include anti-Assad rebels. Nuances easily get lost: united against Isis, these groups are less so when it comes to confronting Bashar al-Assad’s forces. Little noticed in Aleppo’s plight is the fact that Syrian Kurdish fighters have played no small role in the siege of the city. The YPG has been more of a problem for the Syrian opposition than for the Assad regime.

Turkey’s advance now puts these Kurdish groups under pressure, especially given its warming relations with Russia. Moscow may have qualms about Kurdish groups working tightly with the US and its protest against Turkey’s move into Syria may have less to do with protecting the Kurds than keeping the upper hand in Syria’s quagmire. As the Jarablus operation unfolded, US vice-president Joe Biden was in Ankara to attempt to woo Turkey back from Russia. Relations between the US and its Nato ally have been fraught since July’s coup attempt, but getting them back on track now seems a shared objective. So, having used Kurdish forces to take Manbij and stalk Raqqa, Mr Biden warned the YPG to move back across the Euphrates or lose US support.

Syria is racked by multiple wars in which protagonists claiming to share common goals pursue their own distinct priorities. Turkey is part of the anti-IS coalition but wants to fight Kurdish militants in Syria as it does the PKK in its own south-eastern regions. Its role has shrunk from active intervention on multiple fronts to more narrowly defending its border. Even the renewed enthusiasm for Syrian rebels is not about toppling Mr Assad, but ensuring that the Kurds do not prop him up. Russia claims its military involvement is all about combatting Isis but has done much more to ensure the survival of the Assad regime. Syrian Kurdish groups have been “recruited” by the US against Isis, but their ultimate goal is to carve out an autonomous region. Anti-Assad revolutionaries have all along wanted to get rid of a dictatorship but are increasingly associated with radical Islamist groups, largely for a desperate lack of other options. The US has prioritised bombing Isis but at the expense of forging a solution to Syria’s civil war, which has helped Isis grow. With its tanks, Turkey has played one more card in a multi-pronged war that has created immense suffering and has no end in sight.</s>ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — A Kurdish militant suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden truck into a checkpoint near a police station in southeast Turkey on Friday, killing at least 11 police officers and wounding 78 other people, the prime minister 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.

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.

Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said the attack was a PKK suicide bombing carried out with an explosives-laden truck. He vowed to "destroy the terrorists."

"No terrorist organization can take the Turkish Republic hostage," he told reporters in Istanbul. "We will give these scoundrels every response they deserve."

Turkey sent tanks across the Syrian border following weeks of deadly attacks by the PKK and the Islamic State group. The operation aims to help Syrian rebels retake Jarablus, a key IS-held border town, and to contain the expansion of Syrian Kurdish militia who are linked to the PKK.

Heightened PKK attacks inside Turkey could prompt Turkey to take bolder moves against the Syrian Kurds. On Thursday, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported that Turkish artillery fired at a group Syrian Kurdish fighters who were seen advancing north toward Jarablus despite Turkish warnings for them to retreat.

"This attack, which comes at a time when Turkey is engaged in an intense struggle against terrorist organizations both within and outside its borders, only serves to increase our determination as a country and a nation," President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a written statement.

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, militants and even civilians have been killed since.

At the same time, Turkey has been afflicted by deadly attacks blamed on Islamic State militants, including a suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in southeast Turkey last week that killed 54 people and an attack on Istanbul's main airport in June that killed 44 people.

Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck. The three-story police station was gutted from the powerful explosion.

According to Sirnak governor's office, three of the wounded were civilians. The Health Ministry sent 12 ambulances and two helicopters to the site.

Cizre was placed under 24-hour curfew for several weeks earlier this year, as the security forces launched operations to root out Kurdish militants. A Turkish human rights group said scores of civilians were killed in the operations.

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 organization by Turkey and its allies. Some 40,000 people have been killed since the conflict started in 1984.

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

On Thursday, Kurdish rebels opened fire at security forces protecting a convoy carrying Turkey's main opposition party leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu in the northeast, killing a soldier and wounding two others, officials said.</s>Turkey aims to clear its borders of Islamic State and other militant groups to prevent a new flow of migrants and will continue operations until the nation’s security is guaranteed, prime minister Binali Yildirim said on Friday.

 Yildirim also told a news conference that the outlawed Kurdish militant group PKK was behind Friday’s bombing of a police headquarters in Turkey’s southeast, the latest in a string of attacks that the authorities have blamed on the group.

 The attack came two days after Turkey launched an incursion into Syria against Islamic State and Kurdish militia fighters there.
Suspected Kurdish militants fire rockets at Diyarbakır Airport in Diyarbakır, Turkey.