Seven police officers were killed and at least 27 were injured in a car bomb attack on a bus carrying police special forces in Turkey's southeastern Diyarbakır province on Thursday, security sources and officials said, a day before the PM Davutoğlu is due to visit the southeastern city..The minister of development Cevdet Yılmaz told reporters that 13 police officers, including one in critical condition, and 14 civilians, including one also in critical condition were injured when a bomb exploded while a police service vehicle was passing in Diyarbakır's Bağlar district.
The Diyarbakır prosecutor office, in charge of investigating the attack, said it suspected a parked car bomb was detonated when the special operation police forces' vehicle was passing.
Numerous cars near the explosion site, the Intercity bus terminal and other buildings were damaged as well.
Diyarbakır, the largest city in the southeast, has been hit by waves of violence by the PKK's renewed terror attacks since the ceasefire between the terror organization and the government collapsed in July.
The PKK affiliated HPG terrorist group on Friday April 1 claimed responsibility for the attack.
A PKK offshoot has claimed two car bomb attacks this year in the capital Ankara.
The first, on February 17, targeted a military bus and killed 29 people, most of them soldiers. The second, just under a month later, tore through a crowded transport hub and killed 37 people.
NATO member Turkey faces multiple security threats. As part of a U.S.-led coalition, it is fighting Daesh in neighbouring Syria and Iraq. In the southeast, the collapse of the 2-1/2-year ceasefire has meanwhile triggered some of the worst violence since the 1990s.
In Istanbul this month a suicide bomber, who was a member of Daesh, killed three Israeli tourists and an Iranian.
The PKK-listed as a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the EU-resumed its 30-year armed campaign against the Turkish state in July 2015.
Since then, over 350 members of the security forces have been martyred and thousands of PKK terrorists killed in operations across Turkey and northern Iraq.