Car bomb blast in western Turkey

At least 13 people have been injured after a car bomb exploded in the port city of Izmir, in western Turkey.

Those injured were reported to be mostly police officers and soldiers. The blast took place near a police housing complex in the Konak district.

Local officials said the car was packed with plastic explosives which were detonated remotely.

No-one has claimed responsibility for the attack, though analysts say it bears the hallmarks of the Kurdish PKK.

The car was parked on a residential road in the city, the third largest in Turkey, and was detonated as a military car and police bus approached it.

"One of the soldiers, a private, is in a critical condition and is being operated on," a spokesman for the governor's office told Agence France Presse.

The blast follows an incident on Tuesday when a suspected suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives in the southern city of Mersin, injuring at least nine policemen.

There is speculation that the PKK rebels - who are fighting for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish east and south-east of the country - have been planning attacks in urban areas in retaliation for Turkish airstrikes on their strongholds in northern Iraq.

However, leftist and Islamist groups have also carried out attacks in Turkey in the past.