Car bomb in southeast Turkey wounds 8 police officers: security sources

• Police van targeted in Diyarbakir.
  
• Minister says explosion occurred in parked vehicle.
• No immediate claim of responsibility.

DIYARBAKIR: Eight Turkish police officers were wounded on Friday when a bomb exploded in a roadside vehicle as their minibus passed on a highway in the southeastern province of Diyarbakir, security sources said.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said two people had been detained and were believed to be the perpetrators of the blast.

“There was an explosion in a parked vehicle at 05:10am (0210 GMT) as a police vehicle was going to work in Diyarbakir,” he said.

The Diyarbakir governor’s office said the bomb had not critically hurt anyone, but nine people who had been in the armoured minibus had been taken to the hospital for checkups.

The blast occurred near a livestock market some 10 km (6 miles) south of the centre of Diyarbakir, the largest city in the region, the sources said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility. Kurdish, leftist and Daesh have all carried out bomb attacks in Turkey in the past.

A bomb killed six people and wounded dozens in Turkey’s largest city, Istanbul, last month. Dozens of people, including a Syrian woman, were detained as suspects.

Turkey blamed Kurdish militants for that blast, but no group claimed responsibility then, either. The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) denied involvement.