Blast kills 2 at governor's office in southern Turkey

An explosion killed two peopleand wounded 33outside the governor's office in thesouthern Turkish city of Adana on Thursday, weeks after theUnited States warned of attacks by what it called extremistgroups.

Video footage showed a vehicle ablaze in the car parkoutside the building and thick black smoke rising into the skyin the city, 40 kilometres from Turkey's Mediterranean coast.Windows were blown out and parts of the facade of the building,roughly six floors high, were torn off.

Damned terror continues to target our people. Turkish EUAffairs MinisterOmerCelik

The state-run Anadolu agency quoted provincial governorMahmut Demirtas as saying two people were killed. Anadolu saidthe blast, which occurred shortly after 8 a.m. local time, camefrom a vehicle in front of the building.

Energy Minister Berat Albayrak, the son-in-law of PresidentTayyip Erdogan, who was in Adana for a conference at a separatelocation, said 33 people had been wounded in the blast.

Adana is about 16 kilometres from Incirlik Air Base,which the U.S. military uses to launch attacks against ISIS militants in Syria. Families of U.S. military personnelwere ordered to leave Adana and some other parts of Turkey inMarch over security concerns.

"Damned terror continues to target our people. We will fightwith this terror to the end in the name of humanity," Turkish EUAffairs Minister Omer Celik wrote on Twitter, saying he hadspoken to the Adana governor.

The U.S. embassy in Turkey strongly condemned what itdescribed as an "outrageous terrorist attack" and said it stoodagainst terror with Turkey, a NATO ally and member of theU.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.

• EU vote on Turkey has 'no value,'Erdogansays
• ANALYSIS |Turkey's purged post-coup military has NATO allies nervous: Brian Stewart

Labour Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said Kurdish PKKmilitants may have been responsible and that 21 people werewounded, five of them seriously.

"It looks like they [the PKK]were probably behind it thismorning yet again, as this looks like their one of theiractions," he told broadcaster CNN Turk.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Incursion into Syria

PKK militants have carried out dozens of attacks on membersof the security forces and government buildings since July 2015,when a ceasefire between the group and the Turkish statecollapsed. Civilians have also been killed.

A Turkish soldier was killed and two wounded on Thursdayafter an improvised explosive device was detonated by suspectedPKK militants in the southeastern province of Sirnak, near theSyrian and Iraqi borders, security sources said.

The PKK, which is considered a terrorist organisation by theUnited States and European Union, has waged a three-decadeinsurgency for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey's southeast.

• Despite ISIS attacks, Turkey focused on 'the Kurdish problem'

Turkey has also been hit by at least half a dozen suicideattacks blamed on ISIS over the past year, includingsuicide bombings in Istanbul in January and March which killedGerman and Israeli tourists, and a gun-and-bomb attack atIstanbul airport which killed 45 people in June.

Turkey launched an incursion into Syria to try to pushISIS away from the border in August, days after asuicide bomber killed more than 50 people at a wedding in thesouthern city of Gaziantep.

The U.S. Consulate General in Adana warned three weeks agothat "extremist groups continue aggressive efforts to attackU.S. citizens and other foreigners in Adana". The StateDepartment has warned U.S. citizens to avoid travel tosoutheastern Turkey.