ISTANBUL — Turkish authorities detained 26 people over a car bomb attack in the southeastern town of Viransehir, the provincial governor’s office said on Saturday.
A vehicle loaded with explosives was remotely detonated late on Friday in the garden of a housing complex for judges and prosecutors, killing a child and wounding 17 people.
A security guard at the housing complex was also killed in the attack, a statement from Sanliurfa governor’s office said on Saturday.
“A total of 26 people including the owner of the vehicle thought to have been brought from Derik district in Mardin province have been detained,” the statement said.
There was no claim of responsibility. Sanliurfa governor Gungor Azim Tuna was quoted as saying by state-run Anadolu agency that the attack was carried out by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants. The PKK, designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States, launched an armed separatist insurgency in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.
A ceasefire between the PKK and the state broke down in July 2015 and thousands have been killed in conflict since then.
The governor said the “terror attack” was caused by a parked vehicle that was loaded with explosives and detonated using a remote control, the agency reported. The lodgings were badly damaged, the governor added, while Dogan news agency said other buildings and several cars in the area were also damaged.
Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag said on Twitter that no terrorist organization or attack would weaken Turkey’s fight against terror. “Our determined and effective fight against terror will continue,” he said.
Turkey was hit by a series of attacks in 2016 blamed on Kurdish militants and Daesh, killing hundreds of people. The country was also shaken by a failed military coup last July.
This year also had a bloody start, with a New Year’s attack on an elite Istanbul nightclub that left 39 people dead, most of them foreigners. Last month the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a splinter group of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), claimed responsibility for an attack that left two dead in the Aegean city of Izmir. — Agencies
