Turkey Detains 26 after Car Bomb Blamed on PKK

Local Editor

Turkish authorities Saturday blamed Kurdish militants for a car bombing which rocked the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, close to the Syrian border, and detained 26 people in connection with the attack.

The explosion struck the district of Viransehir Friday night, killing a 10-year-old and a neighborhood watch guard.

The office said 26 people were detained including the suspected owner of the car used in the blast, which Dogan news agency said was caused by a ton of explosives.

Some 17 people were also injured in the attack on a housing complex where courthouse workers and security personnel live.

Sanliurfa governor Gungor Azim Tuna told the official news agency Anadolu that the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party [PKK] was to blame.

"We believe this terror attack was conducted by the PKK terror organization," Tuna said.

The PKK is proscribed by Ankara, the US and the European Union [EU] as a terror group.

The group had been waging an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 during which over 40,000 people had been killed.

Last year saw a series of attacks in Turkey blamed on Kurdish militants and the Takfiri Daesh [Arabic acronym for "ISIS" / "ISIL"] extremists while 2017 began with a bloody start.

During New Year celebrations a suspected Daesh extremist killed 39 people, most of whom were foreigners, in an armed attack on a popular Istanbul nightclub.

Daesh claimed the attack and a few days later the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons [TAK], a splinter group of the PKK, claimed responsibility for an attack that left two dead in the Aegean city of Izmir.

The latest attack came after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan kicked off his campaign for a "yes" vote at the April 16 referendum on expanding his powers in the province of Kahramanmaras, close to Sanliurfa.

Source: News Agencies, Edited by website team