22 wounded in PKK attack on police in southeast Turkey

Istanbul: At least 22 people were wounded today in a bomb attack by Kurdish rebels on a police station in Turkey's troubled southeast, reports said.

A car bomb attack carried out by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) caused heavy damage to outer walls of the police station in the town of Cinar in the province of Diyarbakir, the Dogan news agency reported.

The rebels then followed up the car bomb with rocket attacks and long-range gunfire, it added. Adjacent housing for police officers was also hit, wounding the wives of police and several children, Dogan said.

At least 22 people were wounded in total, it said. The PKK launched a formal insurgency against the Turkish state in 1984, initially fighting for Kurdish independence although it now presses more for greater autonomy and rights for the country's largest ethnic minority.

The conflict has left tens of thousands dead. A new upsurge of violence between the security forces and the PKK erupted in July in the wake of attacks blamed on Islamic extremists, shattering a fragile two-and-a-half-year truce.

Vowing to flush out the PKK from Turkey's urban centres, the authorities have in recent weeks kept up curfews in three locations in the southeast to back up military operations that activists say have killed dozens of civilians.

Ten German tourists were killed on Tuesday in a suicide bombing in central Istanbul which the government blamed on Islamic State (IS) group, arch foe of the PKK.