Four people including a pregnant policewoman were killed in a car bombing Wednesday in Kurdish majority south-eastern Turkey, a day after a deadly attack hit mega city Istanbul. Both bombings targeted Turkish police and have been blamed on Kurdish rebels who have been waging a decades-long insurgency against the state. A massive plume of black smoke was seen rising from the rubble of the police station after Wednesday's attack in the town of Midyat near the Syrian border.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim pointed the finger of blame at the "killer PKK", referring to the outlawed rebel Kurdistan Workers' Party. "We will fight them both in urban centres and rural areas with determination," he vowed. The Anatolia news agency said two police officers, including a pregnant woman, and two civilians had been killed and about 30 injured.
The car - loaded with half a tonne of explosives - drove at the Midyat police station and blew up when police opened fire to stop it, the private Dogan news agency reported. Turkey remains on high alert after multiple attacks on its soil that have killed well over 200 people in the past year and have been blamed on, or claimed by, Kurdish rebels and Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
On Tuesday, a car bombing in the heart of Istanbul killed 11 people, including six police officers and five civilians, the latest in a spate of attacks in Turkey's largest city. There was no claim of responsibility for the Istanbul bombing but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan too suggested that Kurdish militants were behind it. Yildirim, along with former president Abdullah Gul and opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu attended the funeral Wednesday of the slain Istanbul police officers. Their coffins were draped with red and white Turkish flags as mourners shouted: "Damn terror" and "Martyrs never die and the homeland will never be divided."
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