Police launch search as Turkish bomb toll rises

DIYARBAKIR, Turkey, Sep 13 (Reuters)Turkish police set up checkpoints on roads leading out of Diyarbakir today in a major search operation for those behind a bomb explosion that killed 11 people, five of them children.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast late yesterday at a bus stop in the largest city in Turkey's southeast region, the focus of a 22-year conflict between the state and rebels fighting for a Kurdish state.

Hospitals were treating 13 people wounded in the explosion, which occurred on a main street next to a park. Yesterday, authorities put the death toll at seven but the number rose to 11 overnight.

Witnesses said the blast, apparently triggered by a mobile phone, tore a hole half a metre across on the pavement and shattered the windows of nearby houses and offices. Firemen cleaned up bloodstains at the site.

''When I looked out I saw a bloodbath. Everyone wanted help. But there was no sound coming from some of the children whom I saw,'' said resident Mahmut Coban, who was sitting at home when the blast occurred.

Police said they believed the device was set off by mistake and it might have been intended for police headquarters 1.5 km away.

Residents were perplexed by the blast, given the separatists' support base in largely in this area.

The explosion was the latest in a series of attacks in Turkish cities, including tourist resorts, which have killed at least 16 people and wounded about 100 people in recent weeks.

The Kurdistan Liberation Hawks (TAK), the separatist militant group which claimed responsibility for attacks in late August, has threatened to turn Turkey into ''hell''.

The group bombed a busy shopping area in the coastal resort of Antalya, killing three people and wounding dozens. That blast followed four bombs in the Mediterranean resort of Marmaris and in Istanbul that wounded 27 people.

TAK and militants of the larger, outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) oppose Ankara's policies in the Kurdish region. Both groups are said to be linked.

Yesterday's explosion occurred a day after Turkey's main Kurdish political party, the Democratic Society Party (DTP), publicly called on the PKK to declare a ceasefire.

The PKK took up arms in 1984 with the goal of creating a Kurdish homeland in southeast Turkey. More than 30,000 people have since been killed in the separatist conflict.

PKK guerrillas mainly attack soldiers in the mountains of southeast Turkey from their bases in northern Iraq.

Far-left and Islamist groups have also carried out bomb attacks in Turkey in the past.

Reuters PDM GC1305