Kurdish militants claim deadly car bomb attack
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 powerful explosion.
Rebels linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, claimed the attack — the latest in a string of bombings by the group targeting police or military vehicles and facilities.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim 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.”
“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 Washington, National Security Council spokesman Ned Price condemned the attack and said, if confirmed, it is just one in a disturbing string of attacks by the PKK.
“We remain steadfast in our support for Turkey, a NATO Ally and partner that continues to be afflicted by terrorist attacks indiscriminately targeting both security personnel and civilians,” he said in a statement.
Turkey has 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 Syrian Kurdish fighters who were advancing north toward Jarablus despite Turkish warnings for them to retreat.
In a statement on the website of the PKK’s military wing, the militant group said the Cizre attack was in retaliation to jailed PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan’s “isolation” on his prison island off Istanbul. The rebel leader has been denied visits since April 2015, as a peace process between the PKK and the government began to falter.