One policeman, three attackers killed in Turkey suicide bombing

[Saithan]

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One policeman was killed along with three suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in a suicide bombing in Turkey's Central Anatolian province of Kayseri today.

A police officer who was declared dead earlier was reportedly revived in hospital, Hürriyet reported.

Nineteen people, including the children of police officers, were also injured when assailants detonated a car laden with explosives in front of a police station in Kayseri's Pınarbaşı district this morning.

Their original target, however, was not the police station, Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin said.

The suspects were first spotted on the road between Kahramanmaraş and Kayseri at a gendarmerie traffic checkpoint. Soldiers wanted to stop the suspicious vehicle, but the suspects refused to halt and drove through the checkpoint, hitting a gendarmerie vehicle and injuring one soldier.

Police and gendarmerie forces started to pursue the vehicle, forcing the attackers to forgo their original target, which was not disclosed in reports, and drive into Kayseri's Pınarbaşı district instead.

Blast rocks Kayseri
in central Turkey

Once in Pınarbaşı, the suspects targeted the district's police station. The assailants attempted to leave the car in front of the station but were spotted by police guards on watch. The suspects opened fire on the policemen, while one assailant got out of the vehicle and lobbed a hand grenade toward the building. A firefight erupted in which the attackers were wounded before they could leave the car. One attacker then apparently detonated the explosives as a last resort.

Two police officers were declared dead but one policeman was later revived in hospital through doctors' efforts. Of the 19 people injured, seven were policemen and 12 were civilians – three of whom were children.

One policeman with serious injuries was taken to Erciyes University Medical School Hospital via helicopter to undergo surgery.

The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.

source: LOCAL - One policeman, three attackers killed in Turkey suicide bombing

[TrMhMt]

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Rip to the policeman.

Kayseri is my home town and this is the first terrorist attack at Kayseri.