ANKARA,— Four police man including a pregnant policewoman were killed in a car bombing Wednesday in Turkish Kurdistan, the country’s southeast Kurdish region, a day after a deadly attack hit mega city Istanbul.
Both bombings targeted Turkish police and have been blamed on Kurdish rebels who have been waging a decades-long insurgency against the state.
A massive plume of black smoke was seen rising from the rubble of the police station after Wednesday’s attack in the town of Midyat near the Syrian border.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim pointed the finger of blame at the “killer PKK”, referring to the outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party.
“We will fight them both in urban centres and rural areas with determination,” he vowed.
The Anatolia news agency said two police officers, including a pregnant woman, and two civilians had been killed and about 30 injured.
The car — loaded with half a tonne of explosives — drove at the Midyat police station and blew up when police opened fire to stop it, the private Dogan news agency reported.
Turkey remains on high alert after multiple attacks on its soil that have killed well over 200 people in the past year and have been blamed on, or claimed by, Kurdish rebels and Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
On Tuesday, a car bombing in the heart of Istanbul killed 11 people, including six police officers and five civilians, the latest in a spate of attacks in Turkey’s largest city.
There was no claim of responsibility for the Istanbul bombing but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan too suggested that Kurdish militants were behind it.
Images carried by Turkish media showed a massive plume of black smoke rising from the rubble of the severely damaged police station in the town of Midyat near the Syrian border.
The windows of houses in the neighbourhood were shattered by the force of the blast.
Yildirim said one police officer and two civilians have been confirmed dead so far while 30 people were injured.
The police station blast comes a day after a bombing in the heart of Istanbul killed 11 people, including several police, the latest in a spate of attacks in Turkey’s largest city.
The government on Wednesday put the toll at six officers and five civilians.
A radical splinter group of the PKK, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), claimed responsibility for two bombings in Ankara earlier this year that killed dozens of people.
Violence flared last year between Kurdish rebels and government forces, shattering a 2013 ceasefire reached after secret talks between PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan and the Turkish state.
Since July 2015, Turkey initiated a controversial military campaign against the PKK in the country’s southeastern Kurdish regions. Since the beginning of the campaign, Ankara has imposed several round-the-clock curfews, preventing civilians from fleeing regions where the military operations are being conducted.
Activists have accused the security forces of causing huge destruction to urban centres and killing Kurdish civilians. But the government says the operations are essential for public safety, blaming the PKK for the damage.
Pro-Kurdish opposition political parties say between about 1,000 civilians, mostly Kurds, have perished in the fighting, since the Turkish offensive against the PKK centred in towns and cities in Turkish Kurdistan.
The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 78-million population. Over 40,000 people have been killed.
A large Turkey’s Kurdish community openly sympathise with PKK rebels.