Eight injured in blast in Turkish port

ANKARA, June 3 (Reuters) An explosion, perhaps caused by a hand grenade, injured eight people today in Mersin, a port on Turkey's Mediterranean coast, security officials said.

They told Reuters an investigation was under way into the blast in front of a tobacconist's shop in Mersin's commercial district. It shattered windows of nearby buildings.

Private news channel CNN Turk put the number of injured at 12 and said the blast was triggered by a mobile telephone. It showed injured people being carried on stretchers to waiting ambulances.

Various militant groups including Kurdish separatists and far-left factions sometimes carry out attacks on both military and civilian targets in Turkey.

Mersin has attracted a large number of job-seeking Kurdish migrants from the troubled southeast over the last two decades and occasionally tensions between the Kurds and the police have erupted into violence.

Last November, a man was killed and another wounded in clashes in Mersin between police and pro-Kurdish protesters.

REUTERS SHB VC1632