Suicide bomber attack kills 1 police, 17 injured in Turkey

KAYSERİ - Doğan News Agency

The incident happened in front of the police station in Anatolian province of Kayseri. The suspects opened fire on the policemen and one assailant lobbed a hand grenade toward the building. AA photo

A suicide bomb killed one policeman, while injuring 17 in the central Anatolian province of Kayseri May 25. The three attackers were also killed.

Nineteen people, including three children of police officers, were injured when assailants detonated a car laden with explosives in front of a police station in Kayseri’s Pınarbaşı district in the morning hours of May 25. Three suspected members of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), were also killed in the incident.

The police station was not, however, the attacker’s original target Interior Minister İdris Naim Şahin said.

“We are trying to figure out their real target. We understand one more time that the terrorist organization will not stop its unexpected and desperado acts,” Şahin said.

The suspects were first spotted on the road between Kahramanmaraş and Kayseri at a gendarmerie traffic checkpoint. Soldiers wanted to stop the suspicious vehicle, but the suspects refused to halt and drove through the checkpoint, hitting a gendarmerie vehicle and injuring one soldier.

Suspected vehicle
Police and gendarmerie forces pursued the vehicle forcing the attackers to forgo their original target, which was not disclosed in reports, and drive into Kayseri’s Pınarbaşı district instead.

The suspects then targeted the Pınarbaşı police station. The assailants attempted to leave the car in front of the station, but were spotted by the policemen on watch.

The suspects opened fire on the policemen, while one assailant got out of the vehicle and lobbed a hand grenade toward the building. A gunfight between police and the suspect left the suspects wounded before they could exit the car. One attacker then allegedly detonated explosives contained in the car as a last resort.

Police officer Ahmet Geben was killed and another police officer, İsmail Elbistan, was heavily injured in the blast, along with three attackers. Of the 17 people injured, seven were policemen and 11 were civilians – three of whom were children.“Terror keeps on [in] its ordinary activities. The ones who have different approaches on the subject have to give an answer to this,” Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said in comments made regarding the incident.

International links
Parliamentary Speaker Cemil Çiçek used the events to draw attention to “terror’s international extent.”
“It is not something a couple of people come together and do. This is an instrument of foreign policy and terror, [which] has international supporters,” Çiçek said.

Peace and Democracy Party Group Chairman Hasip Kaplan has called on to Prime Minister Erdoğan and asked what the government was waiting for to start negotiations. “We wake up every day with similar incidents. The parliament must immediately start talking on this issue and look for a solution,” he said.