Car bomb kills 2, injures 19 in Turkey

A suspected suicide bomber detonated explosives inside a car outside a police station in the central Turkish province of Kayseri on Friday, killing himself and a police officer and wounding some 20 others, Turkish media reported. Kurdish separatists, Islamist militants, including al-Qaeda, as well as groups on the far left and right have all carried out bomb attacks in Turkey, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility. Turkish broadcaster NTV said the bomber had tried to drive his car into the police station moments before the blast took place. At least 19 people were wounded in the attack, six of them seriously, other media reported. NTV said a second assailant was also involved. News agencies could not confirm any of the details surrounding the attack which took place in the town of Pinarbasi east of Kayseri city. Kayseri province is located some 325km (200 miles) southeast of the Turkish capital Ankara. “We can’t get in contact with Pinarbasi police right now, either by telephone or other mobile devices. We know as much as television has reported,” one Kayseri police officer told Reuters by telephone shortly after the blast. “We heard that one policeman was killed and 19 people were wounded but we don’t know yet how many of these people are policemen and how many are civilians,” he said. Hasan Gumus, a civil servant at the Pinarbasi district governor’s office said he heard the blast from his office two kilometres away. “We heard a huge blast even though our office is 2 km away from the police station. We saw a big cloud of smoke rising but we don’t know about the number of dead or injured,” Gumus told Reuters by telephone. “We heard that it was a car which attempted to drive into the police station and then an explosion occurred.” Television footage showed frantic scenes around the police station in Pinarbasi with fire engines and ambulances rushing to the site of the blast.