5 dead, 39 hurt in Turkey bomb attack

Five people were killed and 39 wounded Thursday in a car bomb attack blamed on Kurdish militants that ripped through a police station and an adjacent housing complex for officers and their families in southeastern Turkey.

Two people were killed in an initial car bomb attack by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in  Cinar and three more lost their lives when a building collapsed due to damage, the governor's office of Diyarbakir province said in a statement.

The violence comes after 10 German tourists were killed on Tuesday in a suicide bombing in central Istanbul.

Images published by Turkish media showed the late night blast in Cinar caused huge damage to the residential building used by the police officers and their families, with the entire outer wall blown out.

Both police and civilians were wounded but initial reports said all those killed were civilians.

The governor's office said 14 people were injured in the initial bomb blast while 25 were wounded by the building's collapse, including five who had been rescued from the rubble by emergency teams.

The attackers also followed up the car bomb attack with rocket fire and long-range gunfire, reports said.
The Dogan news agency said a 40-minute clash then ensued between security forces and the rebels.

Security forces have now blocked all entrances and exits to Cinar and have launched a wide operation to find the assailants, it added.

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