ANKARA, 16 August 2005 — Four people were slightly injured yesterday in a bomb blast in front of a bank in Turkey’s mainly Kurdish southeast, the Anatolia news agency reported, only hours after another bomb caused damage but no casualties elsewhere in the region.
The bank bomb, believed to have been planted by rebels of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), exploded near the bank’s cash point in Omerli town in Mardin province, injuring four people waiting in line to withdraw money, it said.
Earlier in the day, a powerful time bomb ripped through a government building in Beytussebap town in neighboring Sirnak province, causing extensive material damage but no casualties, media reports said.
The bomb exploded in the basement of the building, which houses the offices of the sub-governor and other senior officials, at 1 a.m. (2200 GMT), blowing out windows, the NTV and CNN Turk news channels said.
It was not immediately clear who was behind that blast, but the PKK, which has stepped up anti-government violence in the past several months, has long been active in the area.
The two blasts coincided with the 21st anniversary of the first attack the PKK carried out against the Ankara government in 1984 in search of Kurdish self-rule, triggering a bloody conflict which has since claimed some 37,000 lives.
Violence has escalated in Turkey’s southeast since the PKK, considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union, ended a five-year cease-fire in June 2004 on the grounds that Ankara’s concessions to Kurds were insufficient.
The group has been blamed for several other deadly bomb blasts in popular tourist resorts and the country’s biggest city Istanbul over the past month.
Police stepped up security in Turkey’s southeast yesterday amid heightened Kurdish guerrilla activity and the 21st anniversary of the start of a bloody insurgency there, security sources said.
On Aug. 15, 1984, PKK rebels launched two attacks in the districts of Eruh and Semdinli, near the border with Iraq, signaling the start of their insurgency.
Over the weekend, police detained four guerrillas along with 4 kg (9 lb) of explosives and electric fuses in southeastern Batman province, local officials said.
Groups linked with the PKK have also attacked tourist sites in western Turkey, beyond the guerrillas’ traditional sphere of operations. Five people were killed by a bomb last month in the Aegean Sea resort of Kusadasi.
