Nine people were injured on Friday, including eight police officers, when a bomb exploded as a police vehicle drove past near Diyarbakir, the largest city in south-east Turkey inhabited mostly by Kurds, local authorities said.
According to a statement from the governor’s office, the bomb was hidden in a car parked on the side of the road, which exploded when a riot police van drove by late at night around 5 a.m. local time (2 a.m. GMT).
These police officers were on the main road leading from Diyarbakir to Mardin, a tourist town founded by the Assyrians 30 km as the crow flies from the Syrian border.
The attack was not alleged.
This blast, the first in more than five years near Diyabarkir, comes in a tense context following a series of airstrikes by the Turkish army on groups of Kurdish fighters based in northeastern Syria, including the Kurdistan Party Workers (PKK) and the YPG, People’s Protection Units, US allies in the fight against the jihadists of the Islamic State group.
Ankara last month threatened to launch a military ground operation to take control of the region and establish a 30km-wide “security zone” along its southern border.
The PKK has claimed responsibility for several bombings of official buildings, military bases and police stations in recent years, particularly in south-eastern Turkey.