There are both civilians and police among the injured, as the explosion took place near a bus stop.
https://www.rt.com/news/337892-huge-explosion-diyarbakir-turkey/
A senior Iraqi Kurdish leader on Tuesday called for international aid to help finance the war against the Islamic State group, saying it’s a “miracle” that underpaid Kurdish forces are still on the front lines.
Iraq’s largely autonomous Kurdish region has seen its revenues plummet because of low oil prices, a dispute with Baghdad over petroleum revenues and an economic downturn driven by the war with IS.
Iraqi Kurdish forces known as the peshmerga have long been close U.S. allies, and are among the most effective ground forces battling the Islamic extremists.
But Masrour Barzani, son of the regional President Masoud Barzani and head of the region’s security council, told The Associated Press that many Kurdish fighters are not being paid.
A prominent Kurdish lawyer and rights activist was shot in the head and killed in a street shootout in Turkey’s troubled southeast on Saturday, much of the event captured on camera and broadcast around the world.
The pro-Kurdish HDP Party called the killing of Tahir Elci a “planned assassination” and urged people to protest. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said it was unclear whether Elci was caught in crossfire or assassinated.
Hours later, police fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse hundreds of people marching in Istanbul to protest against the killing. The marchers chanted: “Shoulder to shoulder against fascism,” and “Tahir Elci is immortal.”
Witnesses said Tahir Elci was shot in the head after making a statement to media in Diyarbakir, the largest city in Turkey’s troubled, mainly Kurdish southeast where he was president of the local bar association. A policeman was also killed in an ensuing exchange of fire.
Waves of forced displacement and home demolitions carried out by Kurdish forces operating in Syria’s north and northeast amount to “war crimes,” a rights group said on Tuesday.
Amnesty International said a fact-finding mission to 14 towns and villages in northern and northeast Syria “has uncovered a wave of forced displacement and home demolitions amounting to war crimes carried out by the autonomous administration” led by Syrian Kurds.
http://news.yahoo.com/amnesty-accuses-syria-kurdish-forces-war-crimes-231149408.html
It is not clear how this latest plan will work out considering the YPG’s pan-ethnic stance. It claims to protect all the communities in the region, including “Salafi-jihadi organizations that are trying to impose an Islamic state on Syria,” according to Global Security.
DIA documents from 2012 reveal the U.S. wants to establish a Wahhabist principality in Syria, so the inclusion of Salafi-jihadi organizations in the new coalition is likely not a problem.
Even more problematic is the fact the YPG has cooperated with the Syrian government.
http://www.infowars.com/u-s-partners-with-kurdish-war-criminals-in-fight-to-overthrow-al-assad/
Clinging to his brother’s coffin, draped in the red Turkish flag, Lieutenant Colonel Mehmet Alkan’s outburst was a rare public show of defiance from a serving officer as Turkish jets bombard Kurdish militants.
The Kurdish rebel group, the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, has said the airstrikes likely spelled the end of a cease-fire announced in 2013. Turkey has simultaneously bombed Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) positions near the Turkish border in Syria and carried out widespread police operations against suspected Kurdish and ISIS militants and other outlawed groups inside Turkey. Hundreds of people have been detained.
The private Dogan news agency said that Turkish artillery based near the southeastern border town of Semdinli shelled PKK targets across the frontier in northern Iraq for three hours early Sunday. There was no official confirmation of the report.
http://www.infowars.com/turkish-soldiers-killed-by-bomb-blamed-on-kurdish-rebels/
Kurdish militants have claimed responsibility for the assassination of an Istanbul supporter of the Islamic State group, local media outlets reported Thursday. The attack came as fighting between Kurdish and Islamic State militants in Syria was threatening to spill over into neighboring Turkey
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