Kurdish militants on Friday attacked a police checkpoint in southeast Turkey with an explosives-laden truck, killing at least 11 police officers and wounding 78 others.
The attack struck the checkpoint some 50 meters from a main police station near the town of Cizre, in the mainly-Kurdish Sirnak Province that borders Syria, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
There was no immediate claim of the attack that was the latest in a string of bombings to target police or military vehicles and installations. Authorities have blamed the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, for those attacks, AP reported.
Television footage showed black smoke rising from the mangled truck. The three-story police station was gutted from the powerful explosion.
Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim confirmed the death toll, saying it was a suicide attack carried out with an explosives-laden truck. He vowed to “destroy the terrorists.”
Violence between the PKK and the security forces resumed last year, after a fragile two-year peace process between the government and militant group collapsed. Hundreds of security force members have been killed since. The PKK is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its allies.
