Turkish blast kills three, injures 18

A bomb set off by suspected Kurdish guerrillas killed three people and injured 18 others today in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated south-east.

Police Chief Tacettin Kurt and Mustafa Yavuz, the deputy governor of Van, where the blast took place, said they both suspected a suicide bomber was behind the attack. Yavuz said seven of the injured were in serious condition.

Police cordoned off the area around the blast, which hit a municipal traffic van at a busy street close to the local governor’s office. The van was crumpled and burned by the explosion, its windows blown out and side door panels blown off.

A police officer, a civilian and an unidentified man were killed in the blast, Kurt said. The explosion also shattered the windows of several other vehicles and nearby houses and businesses, the Anatolia news agency reported.

Yavuz said the body of the unidentified man was torn apart, leading police to suspect that he may have been a suicide bomber.

CNN-Turk television, quoting police, said security forces in Van had received intelligence reports a month ago about three suicide bombers planning attacks in the city.

Yavuz would not confirm that report, saying only that “security forces received several intelligence reports, all of which were assessed carefully”.

Ambulances ferried the injured to hospitals as police and paramilitary police forces were deployed at the site.

Guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, have escalated their attacks in the region, while Kurdish militants believed to be linked to the outlawed group have staged several bombings across Turkey during the past month

On Monday, suspected rebels killed four police officers in an ambush near the south-eastern city of Batman and detonated a bomb under the car of a military officer in the town of Idil in Sirnak province.

The bomb attack injured one.

Fighting between guerrillas and security forces has killed more than 37,000 people since 1984.

The group is considered a terrorist organisation by the United States and the European Union.

Today, a court in the south-eastern province of Diyarbakir sentenced a university student to 10 months in prison for holding up a banner emblazoned with the PKK flag alongside the Turkish and EU flags at a demonstration last year.

Berat Birtek’s lawyer Servet Ozen said he would appeal against the ruling.