Turkey suicide car bomb blast kills two, injures 23

Two police officers were killed and 23 people wounded in a suicide car bomb attack on police headquarters in the south-eastern Turkish city of Gaziantep, the governor and police sources said, in one of two attacks on security forces on Sunday.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but security sources said police raided the home of a suspected Islamic State militant believed to have carried out the attack and detained his father for DNA tests and questioning.

Turkey has suffered attacks recently both from Kurdish militants and Islamic State fighters, raising uncertainty at home and among Nato allies about spillover of conflict from neighbouring Syria.

The Gaziantep-based suspect is believed to have detonated a bomb-laden vehicle just outside the gates of police headquarters on a street housing several other provincial government buildings whose windows were smashed.

“The father of a suspect who is believed to have carried out the attack has been detained. We have records of the suspect’s links with Islamic State,” a security source said.

A Turkish flag was hung on the side of the police HQ building. Many shops were severely damaged. Shopkeepers and municipality workers cleaned streets covered with rubble strewn by the blast.

Cordon

Police, who cordoned off the area and increased security measures across the city, removed the pieces of a wrecked vehicle and collected body parts thought to be belonging to the perpetrator from the scene. Nineteen police officers and four civilians were wounded in the attack, Gaziantep governor Ali Yerlikaya’s office said. One officer died at the scene and a second in hospital, a security source said.

Several hundred miles eastwards along the same border, in the town of Nusaybin, three Turkish soldiers were killed and 14 others wounded in an armed attack by Kurdish militants, an army statement said.

Separately, Turkish police fired tear gas and water cannons and detained more than 200 people after scuffles broke out at May Day celebrations in Istanbul and some anti-government protesters tried to breach a ban on access to the main Taksim square.

– (Reuters)