Car bomb blast in southeast Turkey kills one Turkish soldier, wounds five

Kurdish militants launched a car bomb attack near a military installation in southeast Turkey overnight, killing one soldier and wounding five people, the armed forces said in a statement on Wednesday.

Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants were behind the attack at 00:50 am (2150 GMT) near a gendarmerie base in the Derik district of Mardin province, near the Syrian border, the military said. Four of the wounded were soldiers, it said.

At least 42 PKK fighters were killed in air strikes in northern Iraq and clashes in southeast Turkey on Monday and Tuesday and three soldiers died, the military said on Tuesday.

Thousands of militants and hundreds of security force members and civilians have been killed since the conflict between the PKK and the Turkish state resumed last July after a 2-1/2-year ceasefire.

The PKK, designated a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies, began a separatist insurgency in 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.