Deadly blast hits police HQ in southeast Turkey

Cizre is located in Sirnak, a province that borders both Syria and Iraq and has a largely Kurdish population

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A car bomb at a police headquarters in Turkey's largely Kurdish southeast killed at least 11 and wounded dozens on Friday, ministers said, two days after Turkey launched an incursion against ISIS and Kurdish militia fighters in Syria.

The state-run Anadolu news agency blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a militant group which has waged a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy and has been involved in almost daily clashes with security forces since a ceasefire collapsed more than a year ago.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

The bombing, the latest in a series of attacks in the southeast, comes as Turkey tries to recover from a failed July 15 military coup.

Large plumes of smoke billowed from the site in Cizre, located in Turkey's Sirnak province bordering both Syria and Iraq, footage on CNN Turk showed. The broadcaster said a dozen ambulances and two helicopters had been sent to the scene.

Economy Minister Nihat Zeybekci, speaking on broadcaster NTV, said 11 police officers were killed and 78 were wounded. Health Minister Recep Akdag said four of them were critical.

Photographs broadcast by private channel NTV showed a large three-storey building reduced to its concrete shell, with no walls or windows, and surrounded by grey rubble.

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