ANKARA, Jan 8: A Kurdish rebel group apologised on Tuesday for a deadly car bomb attack in Turkey’s main Kurdish city last week, blaming it on militants acting on their own, a news agency close to it reported.

“This attack was not planned centrally by our movement... We regret the loss of civilian life and apologise to our people,” the Firat news agency quoted Bozan Tekin, a senior member of the outlawed separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), as saying.

“According to our investigation, it was an act by independent, local (Kurdish) units in retaliation to attacks against the Kurdish people... It targeted a vehicle carrying military officers,” Tekin said. The explosives-laden car was detonated by remote control on Thursday in the centre of Diyarbakir, the largest city of the Kurdish-majority southeast, as an army vehicle carrying some 50 soldiers was passing by.

Six people, among them five high school students attending classes at a nearby private school, were killed and about 70 others, including some 30 military personnel, were injured.

The PKK said on Monday a group of its militants “acting on their own” could be responsible for the attack. Turkish officials have blamed the PKK for the bombing.

Army chief Yasar Buyukanit said the blast was a sign of “panic” in PKK ranks following Turkish air raids on the group’s bases in neighbouring northern Iraq, which the rebels use as a springboard for cross-border attacks inside Turkey.

The army has confirmed three air strikes conducted with US intelligence assistance against the PKK in Iraq since Dec 16, which it said killed at least 150 militants and destroyed more than 200 PKK positions.—AFP