Turkey blast kills nine, injures 100 after pro-Kurdish leaders detained

A car bomb targeting a police station in southeastern Turkey has killed seven civilians and two police officers, according to state-run Anadolu news agency.

Earlier on Friday morning, Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said 100 people were injured in the explosion, 93 of whom have since been released from hospitals.

ISIS claimed responsibility late Friday, according to a statement circulated online by the Amaq agency which is affiliated with the terror group.

The claim conflicts with an earlier statement from Turkish authorities who blamed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) for the attack.

A large explosion hit the largest city in Turkey's mainly Kurdish southeast region, Anadolu reported.

The bomb, which damaged cars and nearby building facades, rocked the heavily-populated Baglar district in central Diyarbakir shortly before 8 a.m. local time, the provincial governor's office said in a statement.

A 30-year-old conflict between the Turkish state and militants from the PKK reignited more than a year ago in Turkey's predominantly Kurdish southeast.

Party leaders detained

People walk through the debris from an explosion in the Turkish city of Diyarbakir on November 4.

The deadly explosion came just hours after more than a dozen members of Parliament from a pro-Kurdish political party were detained because they failed to respond to a summons by a prosecutor, according to a statement from the Prime Minister's office.

State media reported that several politicians from the Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), were detained as part of a terror investigation, following raids on their homes.

The HDP, Turkey's third-largest political party, claimed its headquarters in Ankara were raided.

Ankara has been accused of cracking down on dissidents since a coup attempt over the summer.

Anadolu reported that party leaders Selahattin Demirtas and Figen Yuksekdag have now been formally arrested along with four party members. Four people are still being detained without charges, while three others were released but remain under judicial scrutiny and face travel bans.

Demirtas tweeted late Thursday that "police officials are at my door in my Diyarbakir house [in southern Turkey] to detain me by force."

Co-chairs of the pro-Kurdish People's Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas, left, and Figen Yuksekdag.

Web access blocked?

The party said in a tweet that an internet slowdown was in effect "to prevent reactions through social media" to the arrests.

According to TurkeyBlocks, an Internet monitoring group, access to several social media platforms including Twitter, Facebook and WhatsApp, had been restricted in the country. An expert for the group said that domestic Internet providers were "throttling" or slowing connection to specific social sites, causing the blocked access.

News Courtesy: www.cnn.com