Turkish artillery have attacked Islamic State positions in Iraq and Syria in retaliation for the suicide bombing in Istanbul which killed 10 tourists, Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
Mr Davutoglu said said 200 members of the militant group were killed as Turkish military targeted 500 extremist positions along the border with Syria and near a Turkish camp in northern Iraq.
The attacks took place in the last 48 hours, he said.
The news comes after Kurdish rebels detonated a car bomb at a police station in south-east Turkey, then attacked it with rocket launchers and firearms, killing six people including children.
At least 39 other people were injured in the attack on the police station in the town of Cinar, in the mostly Kurdish Diyarbakir province, Diyarbakir governor’s office said.
The force of the blast caused a house near the police station to collapse.
Mr Davutoglu said one police officer and five civilians were killed while 39 people were injured, including six police officers.
According to the private Dogan news agency the dead included the wife of a policeman and a five-month-old baby who were killed at on-site lodgings and two children who died in the collapsed house.
Another police station was attacked with rocket launchers in Midyat town, in the province of Mardin, in what appeared to be a simultaneous assault, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. No casualties were reported there.
The explosion in Cinar caused extensive damage, affecting buildings two or three blocks away from the police station. Windows were blown out and shop shutters were buckled by the force of the blast.
The governor’s office said security forces responded to the attack, but it was not clear if there were any casualties among the rebels.
The attack came a day after a suicide bomber set off an explosion in Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet district, just steps away from the landmark Blue Mosque, killing 10 German tourists.
Turkish officials said the bomber, a Syrian born in 1988, was affiliated with the Islamic State group.
Hundreds of people gathered at the site of that attack on Thursday to lay flowers and hold a minute of silence.
Five people have been detained in connection to the Istanbul bombing, authorities have said.
Clashes between Turkey’s security forces and the rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, reignited in July, shattering a fragile peace process.
Authorities have since imposed extended curfews in flashpoint neighbourhoods and towns in the mainly Kurdish-populated south east as security forces battle militants linked to the PKK.
The operations have resulted in more than 100 civilian casualties and displaced thousands, human rights groups say.
The conflict has killed tens of thousands of people since 1984.
The PKK is considered a terror organisation by Turkey and its western allies.
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