TURKEY: The Kurdish PKK separatist group may be behind the latest upsurge in attacks in Turkey, writes Nicholas Birch in Istanbul
A suicide bomber killed two people and injured 18 in the southeastern Turkish city of Van yesterday, in the region's third suspected Kurdish guerrilla attack this week. The blast shattered a municipal minibus that was being used to shuttle policemen to work in the city centre. One of the dead and 12 of the injured were policemen.
Van governor Mustafa Yavuz said that investigators were still unsure of the identity of the bomber, whose torn body was found next to the minibus.
Recent weeks have seen a sharp escalation in attacks blamed on guerrillas of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, the former separatist group blamed for the death of Irish holidaymaker Tara Whelan in a bomb attack last summer.
On Monday, suspected rebels shot four police officers dead in an ambush in the southeastern town of Batman. On the same day, a bomb attack on a military officer's car injured one person.
Analysts suspect the much-weakened PKK, which fought the Turkish state between 1984 and 1999, may have upped violence in an effort to impose itself on politically highly charged celebrations of the Kurdish New Year later this month. The Newroz [Kurdish name for the festival] was banned in Turkey until recently.
The nature of yesterday's attack has caused widespread shock in Turkey. If the PKK does turn out to be responsible, it will be the group's first suicide attack since the late 1990s.
Van has been in the Turkish headlines since last week, when a local state prosecutor Ferhat Sarikaya called for the indictment of the country's second most senior army officer. The demand came as part of Mr Sarikaya's report on a bombing that killed one man in the remote town of Semdinli last November.
The explosion is widely believed to have been the work of military intelligence operatives and a police informer who were captured by local people at the scene of the crime. As expected, Mr Sarikaya demanded life sentences for the three men.
In line to become the next Turkish chief of staff in August, Ge Yasar Buyukanit was heavily criticised for describing one of the arrested military intelligence operatives as "a good kid."
But last week, the Van prosecutor went well beyond charging Gen Buyukanit with attempting to influence judicial process. He also accused him of gangsterism.
The charges appear to be based on evidence given by a Kurdish radio station owner to a parliamentary commission set up to investigate the Semdinli bombing.
Arrested and charged with aiding the PKK in the late 1990s, Mehmet Ali Altindag claimed he was framed by one of the military intelligence officials arrested in Semdinli, acting under orders from then local commander Gen Buyukanit.
While the frequent dirtiness of the Turkish army's war against the PKK is increasingly known in Turkey, prosecutions of military officers accused of misusing their power remain very few.
Analysts have dismissed Mr Sarikaya's charges as absurd. Many see them as the latest shot in an unspoken war of influence being fought between the secularist army and the former Islamist government. Widely considered a hardliner, Gen Buyukanit would probably have to sit out his promotion this summer if a case were opened against him now.
Meanwhile, an investigation has now been opened into Mr Sarikaya's conduct.