Two killed in suicide bombing in central Turkey

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AFP News – 4 hours ago

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Map of Turkey locating Kayseri where a suicide bomb squad killed two policemen and wounded more than a dozen people after they drove into a police station and opened fire, reports said quoting officials

A suicide bomb squad killed two policemen and wounded more than a dozen people in central Turkey on Friday after it drove into a police station and opened fire, reports said quoting officials.

Three men sped their vehicle into a police station in the city of Kayseri, where they fired weapons before one of the attackers set off a bomb, reports said.

   One officer was killed instantly and another died on the way to hospital.

The attackers were also killed, news reports said.

   Sixteen civilians, including several children, who were nearby were wounded, Turkey's Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin was quoted as saying.

   The attackers seemed to have carried out the bombing in panic after fleeing a traffic stop earlier in the day at Kayseri city entrance and targetting the first official building they saw, Sahin said.

   The blast ripped their car to bits and it was difficult to determine exactly how many people were inside, Sahin said. Turkish media quoting witnesses said three attackers were involved.

   It marked a rare suicide bombing in Turkey, which frequently sees roadside explosions and bomb attacks carried out by the PKK.

   The previous suicide bombing took place last October in eastern town of Bingol, where two people were killed when a woman blew herself up near the headquarters of governing Justice and Development Party.

In November 2010 in Istanbul, a bomber blew himself up on the central Taksim square, wounding 32 people.

   The PKK, listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey and by much of the international community, took up arms in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984, sparking a conflict that has claimed some 45,000 lives.