Soldiers, security members and people work at the scene of a car bomb attack in Semdinli, near the border with Iraq, Turkey, on Sunday (AP photo)

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Ten Turkish soldiers and eight civilians were killed on Sunday when suspected Kurdish militants detonated a 5-tonne truck bomb that ripped through a checkpoint near a military outpost in the country’s southeast, the prime minister said. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency, citing a statement by the Turkish Armed Forces, said the attack occurred at 9:45 a.m. outside a Gendarmerie checkpoint on the Semdinli-Yuksekova highway and was the work of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. The PKK, a group that is proscribed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, has waged a 32-year insurgency against the Turkish state, which has left nearly 40,000 dead since 1984. Authorities were on high alert for possible attacks on Sunday, 18 years to the day since PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan fled Syria before being captured by Turkish special forces in February the following year. The bomb exploded at a police station in Hakkari, a town 77 kilometers (48 miles) from the Iraqi border, the Turkish army said in a statement. On Friday, the militant Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK, considered an offshoot of the PKK, claimed responsibility.
A suspected PKK car bomb kills at least 17 people, and injures 27 others in Turkey's southeast Hakkâri Province.