One Dead, 18 Hurt in Southeast Turkey Car Explosion

A car exploded on Sunday in a town in Turkey's Kurdish-majority southeast, killing an 11-year-old child and wounding 18 others, in an attack blamed on Kurdish rebels, officials and security sources said.

Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan slammed the "heinous attack" which caused a civilian death as it happened close to a wedding gathering, reported the Anatolia news agency.

Erdogan strongly condemned the attack which he said was carried out by the "terrorist organization," referring to the banned Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK).

The blast which shattered windows of the nearby shops occurred in the Semdinli town of Hakkari province bordering Iraq and Iran, as an armored police vehicle passed by, said security sources.

Kurdish rebels have carried out similar attacks on security targets in the past.

Semdinli is the scene of frequent clashes between Turkish security forces and PKK members.

The blast follows an escalation of Kurdish rebel attacks targeting Turkey's security forces in the southeast, triggering full-fledged military operations in the region.

On Thursday, another car exploded outside a military barracks in a southern Turkey town near Syria, lightly injuring four people, in an attack blamed on Kurdish rebels.

About 45,000 people have been killed since the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community, took up arms for autonomy in Kurdish-majority southeastern Turkey in 1984.