ANKARA // Kurdish militants on Friday attacked a police checkpoint in south-east Turkey with a lorry loaded with explosives, killing at least 11 police officers and wounding 78 other people, the state-run news agency said.
The attack struck the checkpoint about 50 metres from a police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly-Kurdish Sirnak province that borders Syria, the Anadolu Agency reported.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack which was the latest in a string of bombings targeting police or military vehicles and installations. Authorities have blamed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for those attacks.
Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled lorry. The three-storey police station was gutted from the powerful explosion.
The Turkish health ministry said it had sent 12 ambulances and two helicopters to the site.
Violence between the PKK and the security forces resumed last year, after the collapse of a fragile two-year peace process between the government and the militant group. Hundreds of security force members have been killed since.
Turkey has also seen a rise of deadly attacks that have been blamed on ISIL militants, including a suicide bombing at a Kurdish wedding in south-east Turkey last week that killed 54 people and an attack on Istanbul's main airport in June, which killed 44.
Turkey sent tanks across the Syrian border this week to help Syrian rebels retake the town of Jarabulus from ISIL.
Since hostilities with the PKK resumed last summer, more than 600 Turkish security personnel and thousands of PKK militants have been killed, according to the Anadolu Agency. Human rights groups say hundreds of civilians have also been killed.
* Associated Press
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