Kurdish Suicide Bomber Injures 14 People at Turkish Supermarket

A Kurdish rebel blew herself up and injured 14 people in southeastern Turkey on Tuesday.

The blast took place against the backdrop of a dispute between Turkey and Italy over a Turkish bid to seek the extradition of rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan, who was detained by Italy at the Rome airport last month.

Witnesses said that in order to increase the force of the blast, the woman opened valves on gas canisters before detonating the bomb outside a small supermarket in the town of Lice, about 425 miles southeast of Ankara, the capital.

“There was a big explosion. I saw gas bottles flying through the air, and then I don’t remember anything,” an injured civilian, Abdurrahman Yildirim, said. It was not immediately known how many of the wounded were soldiers.

Another Kurdish rebel killed herself and wounded two people in a similar suicide bomb attack outside a Turkish police station two weeks ago. A soldier later died of his wounds.

Security forces searched vehicles at roadblocks after a security cordon was thrown up around Lice. Reporters traveling to the town, where Ocalan’s Kurdistan Workers Party was founded 20 years ago last week, were turned away.