Turkey attack kills two police, wounds 35: security sources

PanARMENIAN.Net - A car bomb and rocket attack by Kurdish militants killed two police officers and wounded 35 people in the southeastern Turkish province of Mardin on Friday, March 4, Reuters reports citing security sources.

The attack was carried out around 6 a.m. (0400 GMT) by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants in the town of Nusaybin, near the Syrian border, they said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

A ceasefire between the PKK and the state collapsed last July and attacks on Turkey's security forces have since increased amid a surge in violence in the predominantly Kurdish southeast that has killed hundreds of people.

Violence has also increased elsewhere in Turkey. A suicide car bombing targeting military buses in Ankara killed 29 people last month. The government said that attack was carried out by a member of the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia with help from the PKK, Reuters said.

Turkey has also become a target for Islamic State militants, who are blamed for three suicide bombings - one last year in the town of Suruc near the Syrian border and another in the capital, Ankara, and one in Istanbul in January. Those attacks killed more than 140 people.

The PKK, considered a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, launched a separatist armed rebellion against Turkey in 1984. More than 40,000 people, mostly Kurds, have since been killed.