Explosion rocks city in southeast Turkey, 6 killed - Action News
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Explosion rocks city in southeast Turkey, 6 killed

A car bomb kills six people including four police officers and a child outside a police station in southeastern Turkey.

Kurdish rebels suspected in deadly blast at Diyarbakir police station, officials say

Turkish authorities stand outside a damaged police station after an explosion near the city of Diyarbakir, in southeastern Turkey, on Monday. Kurdish rebels detonated a car bomb at the police station, killing six, officials said. (Mehmer Piskin/IHA/Associated Press)

A car bomb killed sixpeople including four police officers and a child outside apolice station in southeastern Turkey on Monday, according tosenior government officials who blamed the attack on Kurdishmilitants.

Twenty-one people, some of the police officers, were woundedin the bombing on a busy road between the city of Diyarbakir,the region's largest, and the district of Bismil, Deputy PrimeMinisters Numan Kurtulmus said.

The blast blew out the police station's windows and left thebuilding's twisted metal frame exposed through the concrete andits roof partially collapsed, footage on CNN Turk televisionshowed. There was also a crater in the ground outside.

The dead included a civilian adult and a child of one of thepolice officers killed.

Turkey's southeast has suffered some of the most intensefighting in decades since a ceasefire between the Turkish stateand the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) collapsed in July2015.

Monday marks the anniversary of the PKK taking up armsagainst the state 32 years ago. The group, which wants autonomyfor Turkey's Kurds, is designated a terrorist organisation byTurkey, the European Union and United States.

The PKK launched its insurgency with simultaneous attacks onsecurity forces in the southeastern towns of Eruh and Semdinlion Aug. 15, 1984. More than 40,000 people militants, securityforces and civilians have been killed since.

A broadcast ban was imposed on media coverage of Monday'sbombing to try to stop information crucial to the investigationfrom being spread, an official at the governor's office said.