At least eight Turkish policemen have been injured after a car bomb exploded as a patrol was passing by in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, authorities have confirmed, with no claim of responsibility for the attack so far.
«In Diyarbakir, eight police officers have been injured due to a car explosion near a service vehicle,» Turkish Health Minister Fahrettin Koca said in a message on his Twitter social network account. «The condition of our injured, transferred to hospitals by ambulance, is good,» he added.
The attack has been confirmed by the Turkish Interior Minister, Suleyman Soylu, who has detailed that the event has taken place around 5.10 am (local time). He also indicated that «two people considered responsible for the incident have been taken into custody», without giving further details.
For its part, the Diyarbakir Prosecutor’s Office has indicated that three other people have been arrested shortly after the opening of an investigation to clarify what happened, as reported by the Turkish state news agency. The province is located in the southeast and is one of the Kurdish-majority areas of the Eurasian country.
The event takes place about a month after the death of six people in a bomb attack in the city of Istanbul, blamed by Turkey on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which disassociated itself from the attack. Ankara announced the start of a new bombing campaign against Kurdish groups in Iraq and Syria in response to the incident.
