Blast kills 7 in Turkey's Kurdish region

A civil security guard, right, reacts as he asks for help for the injured people after an explosion in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, late Tuesday, Sept. 12, 2006. An explosion in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir Tuesday evening killed at least seven people and injured more than 10 others. The cause of the explosion near a car park was not immediately known. (AP Photo/Nail Kadirhan/Anatolia)


It appears that today is a day of terror attacks. From CNN.Com:

(CNN) -- A bomb blast in the southeastern Turkish city of Diyarbakir has killed seven people and injured 17, two of them seriously, officials said.

Five of the seven killed were children, police said.

There has been no claim of responsibility for the blast, according to the press office of the city's governor.

Turkish authorities said blast was caused by a bomb made from powerful explosives and was set off by a cell phone timer, The Associated Press reports. (Watch chaos in the streets after the blast -- 1:02 )

The explosion in the city of Diyarbakir happened around 9 p.m.(6 p.m. GMT) and an investigation had begun, according to a statement from the provincial governor's office.

An explosion occurred in the southeastern city of Diyarbakir in Turkey on Tuesday, CNN-Turk reported. (ESRI)

A Kurdish news agency reported that the blast took place near an elementary school. Witnesses said the blast threw body parts over a wide area and left pools of blood from the killed and injured.

A hospital made an appeal for blood donations after the injured were brought in to be treated, Reuters reported.

Diyarbakir, a city of more than a half million people on the Tigris River, is Turkey's largest majority-Kurd city.

The region is also home to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has waged a 22-year war against Turkey in which more than 37,000 people have died, mainly Kurds. Turkey and the United States consider the PKK a terrorist group.

Kurdish rebels, who seek autonomy from the Turkish government, were blamed for a bombing that killed two people in the southeastern city of Catak on September 3.

The PKK claimed responsibility earlier this month for a series of bombings in Turkish tourist resorts and in Istanbul. Three people were killed in those attacks and dozens wounded.

Also on Tuesday, the Turkish military announced that authorities had defused a remote-controlled bomb planted by Kurdish guerrillas on a busy bridge near the southeastern city of Hatay, and a bomb believed placed by rebels exploded as a freight train carrying coal passed in the eastern province of Bingol, damaging three rail cars, according to the AP.

The United States and Turkey are taking measures to counter Kurdish militants who have training camps in northern Iraq and launch frequent raids into Turkey.