Car bomb in Turkey following arrests of pro-Kurdish leaders
A car bomb has gone off leaving several dead and dozens injured in the Baglar district of Turkey, near the police station where pro-Kurdish lawmakers are being held. Turkey had detained these elected officials from the nation's third-largest party, the Peoples' Democratic Party, as part of a major escalation of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's crackdown on opponents. Widespread difficulty of using social media followed the arrests. Authorities accuse the party of being linked to a Kurdish militant group. 

A car bomb has reportedly killed one person and wounded around 30 others in Turkey’s south-eastern city of Diyarbakır.

The attack followed the overnight arrests of 11 lawmakers from the Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP), whose base is largely drawn from Kurds in the region, as well as leftists and progressives throughout Turkey.

The provincial governor’s office said a car bomb went off around 8am on Friday. The office said in a written statement that Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) militants were believed responsible.

It was not immediately clear what caused the blast in the Baglar district but the explosion resounded through the city and ambulances rushed to the scene.



Turkey has been plagued by a series of deadly bomb attacks in the past 18 months.



The blast came hours after leaders of a pro-Kurdish party were detained by police along with nine other legislators.

It occurred near a police station where the lawmakers apprehended in Diyarbakır had been taken, a security source said.

Police overnight arrested the joint leaders of the HDP, parliament’s second-biggest opposition grouping, over a terrorism investigation.

The armed Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) have waged a three-decade insurgency in Turkey’s south-east.



With Reuters and Associated Press