Girl, 13, killed by suicide bomber

A TEENAGE girl was killed yesterday when a suicide bomber tried to hurl himself at a regional governor in eastern Turkey. The girl, 13, was the latest victim of a wave of bomb attacks that has swept Turkey since the capture of the Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan.

No one claimed responsibilty for the attack, but officials blamed supporters of Mr Ocalan. Governor Suleyman Kamci, who escaped unharmed, said he was walking from his car to his offices when the bomber ran at him, detonating explosives strapped to his body. "This is not an attack on me but on the Turkish state," said Mr Kamci. "The kind of people who can do this are traitors." Twelve bystanders were injured by the blast, which killed the bomber.

Mr Ocalan's Kurdish Workers' Party has declared Turkey a war zone and warned tourists to stay away.