PKK bombing kills six in southeastern Turkey

Six people were killed, including three children, and 39 wounded yesterday in a car bomb attack blamed on Kurdish militants that ripped through a police station and an adjacent housing complex for officers' families in southeastern Turkey.

Two civilians were killed in the initial bombing by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in the town of Cinar and three more lost their lives when a building collapsed due to damage caused by the blast, the governor's office of Diyarbakir province said in a statement.

One policeman was also killed, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said, adding: "I vehemently condemn the attack."

Security sources told AFP the victims killed in the building collapse included a five-month-old baby, a boy aged five and a girl aged one.

The late-night blast in Cinar caused huge damage to the residential building used by the police officers and their families, with the entire outer wall blown out, an AFP correspondent said.

The governor's office said 14 people were injured in the initial bomb blast while 25 were wounded in the building collapse, including five who had been rescued from the rubble by emergency teams.

The PKK launched an 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 of people dead.

On Tuesday, 10 German tourists were killed in Istanbul in a suicide attack by a suspected Islamic State militant.

Since the PKK launched its insurgency in 1984, fighting has stayed largely in the countryside, but the latest violence has focused on urban areas, where the PKK youth wing has set up barricades and dug trenches to keep out security forces.