BREAKING NEWS

Truck bomb attack on soldiers kills 18 in southeast Turkey

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey - Ten Turkish soldiers and eight civilians were killed on Sunday when suspected Kurdish militants detonated a five-tonne truck bomb that ripped through a checkpoint near a military outpost in the country's southeast, the prime minister said.
Another 27 people, including 11 soldiers, were wounded in the blast which hit the Durak gendarmerie station, 20 km (12 miles) from the town of Semdinli, in one of the most deadly attacks in the region of recent times.
The mountainous Hakkari province, where the attack took place, lies near the border with Iraq and Iran and is one of the main flashpoint areas in a conflict that has pitted the Turkish military against the militant Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for three decades.
The attack occurred around 9:45 am (0645 GMT) when a small truck approached the vehicle checkpoint and ignored an order to stop, prompting gendarmerie troops to open fire, the Hakkari governor's office said.
A bomb in the vehicle was detonated, which Prime Minister Binali Yildirim told reporters contained some five tonnes of explosive.