Car Bomb Attack In Southeast Turkey Kills 18
A car bomb attack by Kurdish militants outside a military checkpoint in southeast Turkey has killed 10 soldiers and eight civilians.
Another 27 people, including 11 soldiers, were wounded in the blast.
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim gave the death toll during an October 9 press conference in Istanbul, where he condemned the attack.
Yildirim said the attack had been perpetrated by "a suicide bomber who detonated a van with five tons of explosives."
Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency, citing a statement by the Turkish Armed Forces, said the attack occurred outside a gendarmerie checkpoint some 12 miles from the town of Semdinli in Hakkari Province and was the work of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Turkey has been rocked by a string of bomb attacks since last summer that have killed hundreds of people and been blamed on either the PKK or the Islamic State group.
Since the collapse last summer of a 2 1/2-year-old cease-fire between Turkey and the PKK, more than 600 Turkish security personnel and thousands of PKK fighters have been killed.
