Attack at Turkish government building in southeast wounds 3

ANKARA, Turkey – Kurdish militants attacked a government building in southeast Turkey on Thursday, wounding at least three people including a district governor, officials said.

The state-run Anadolu Agency said the office of the district governor in the town of Derik, near the border with Syria, was attacked with rocket launchers. But a subsequent statement by the regional governor’s office said an improvised explosive device was used. It didn’t elaborate.

The district governor, Fatih Safiturk, was wounded in the attack, officials said. There was no immediate official information on his condition, but Haber Turk television station said he was slightly wounded.

Anadolu said the attack was carried out by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a three-decade-long insurgency against the Turkish state and is considered a terror organization by Turkey and its Western allies. Kurdish militants, however, haven’t immediately claimed responsibility.

The security forces launched an operation to catch the assailants, the agency said, without providing details.

A fragile peace process between the government and the PKK broke down last year, leading to renewed violence in Turkey’s mainly-Kurdish southeast region. At least 700 state security personnel and thousands of Kurdish militants have been killed since then, according to Anadolu.

Turkey has been rocked by a series of deadly bomb attacks in the past 18 months, carried out by the PKK or Islamic State group extremists.