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Five dead in Diyarbakir blast |
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Written by Agencies
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Thursday, 03 January 2008 |
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Five people including two children were killed and 68 people injured on Thursday when a bomb ripped through a bus carrying military personel in a southeastern Turkish city.
Diyarbakir is the biggest city of mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey and home to large numbers of troops who are battling PKK terorists both inside Turkey and in nearby northern Iraq. The blast will keep up pressure on Turkey to strike PKK positions in northern Iraq.
Turkish televisions showed vehicles engulfed in flames as ambulances and firefighters rushed to the scene. One man's face was covered with blood.
The injured included children who were leaving a nearby school at the time of the blast.
"The place where the explosion happened was full of people, there was a private school right in front of it," a police officer told.
Television stations said there were large military installations near the site.
Several explosions happened one after another, security sources said, and CNN Turk broadcaster said the area near the site had been cleared in case of further blasts.
Turkish security forces have been on alert over the New Year fearing possible attacks by the PKK and its supporters as warplanes target terorist camps hiding in northern Iraq.
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