Illustrative: Smokes rise after alleged Kurdish militants detonated a car bomb outside a military station in Semdinli near the border with Iraq, Turkey, October, 9, 2016. (IHA via AP)
ANKARA, Turkey — Kurdish militants attacked a government building in southeast Turkey on Thursday, wounding at least three people including a district governor, officials said.
The state-run Anadolu Agency said the office of the district governor in the town of Derik, near the border with Syria, was attacked with rocket launchers. But a subsequent statement by the regional governor’s office said an improvised explosive device was used. It didn’t elaborate.
The district governor, Fatih Safiturk, was wounded in the attack, officials said. There was no immediate official information on his condition, but Haber Turk television station said he was slightly wounded.
Anadolu said the attack was carried out by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a three-decade-long insurgency against the Turkish state and is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Kurdish militants, however, haven’t immediately claimed responsibility.
Turkish police work near the explosion scene following a late night attack on a wedding party that left at least 50 dead in Gaziantep in southeastern Turkey near the Syrian border on August 21, 2016. (AFP PHOTO / AHMED DEEP)
The security forces launched an operation to catch the assailants, the agency said, without providing details.
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A fragile peace process between the government and the PKK broke down last year, leading to renewed violence in Turkey’s mainly-Kurdish southeast region. At least 700 state security personnel and thousands of Kurdish militants have been killed since then, according to Anadolu.
Turkey has been rocked by a series of deadly bomb attacks in the past 18 months, carried out by the PKK or Islamic State group extremists.
Copyright 2016 The Associated Press.
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