Bomb attacks, cross-border fire nine in southeast Turkey

ISTANBUL – Bomb blasts in two cities in southeast Turkey killed at least nine civilians and wounded dozens on Wednesday, security sources said, blaming the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for the coordinated attacks on police targets. Earlier in the day, three soldiers were killed and 10 wounded when militants opened fire with rockets and long-range weapons from across the border in northern Iraq. Security sources also blamed that attack, in Sirnak province, on the PKK. Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast has seen its worst violence in two decades since the PKK abandoned a 2-1/2-year ceasefire last year. The three civilians were killed when roadside explosives were detonated by remote control in the town of Kiziltepe in Mardin province, near the Syrian border, in an attack targeting a bus carrying police officers, the sources said. Thirty other 30 civilians and 10 police officers were wounded. In the region's largest city, Diyarbakir, a car bomb wounded many police officers, a senior Turkish official said. A security source said initial indications were that seven people had been wounded. The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, took up arms against the Turkish state in 1984 and more than 40,000 people, mainly Kurds, have died in the violence. –Reuters