Turkey blast: Nine dead, 64 injured in explosion at Cizre police checkpoint

Nine people have been killed and 64 others wounded after an explosion hit a police checkpoint in the Turkish border town of Cizre.

According to reports, Kurdish rebels detonated a car bomb and pictures of the attack site showed large plumes of smoke coming out.

The pictures showed a building, said to be a police station, severely damaged and emergency services sifting through its wreckage, reports the Guardian.

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

Militants of the Kurdistan Workers' party, or PKK, have carried out a string of car bomb attacks on police and military in recent months after violence broke out between the two following the collapse of a fragile peace process.

 

Earlier this week, Turkey sent more tanks into Syria and warned a Kurdish militia to withdraw from frontline positions.