Diyarbakir (Turkey): A second bomb attack plotted by Kurdish militants was foiled in Turkey s main Kurdish city following a powerful blast last week that killed six people, the local governor said today. The suspected assailant in the January 3 car bomb attack in Diyarbakir confessed to a plan for a second blast and led the police to the place the bomb was hidden, Governor Huseyin Avni Mutlu told a news conference.

The police sized the remote-control bomb, made of 800 grams of plastic explosives attached to two rockets, as well as another three kilograms of explosives, detonators, a hand grenade, a gun, fake ID cards and printed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) material. "A fresh disaster was prevented," Mutlu said as officials displayed the seized items to the media.

Mutlu described the suspected bomber as a PKK militant who was trained "in bomb-making, assassinations and sabotages" in rebel camps in neighbouring northern Iraq and tasked with carrying out high-profile attacks in Turkey. The 23-year-old man was to appear before a judge later today, along with seven other people suspected of having helped him in the attack. The judge was to question the suspects and decide whether to formally charge them.

Police have said the alleged bomber confessed in his interrogation to having detonated the bomb on PKK orders in the wake of Turkish air raids on the rebel group s camps in Iraq in December. The explosives-laden car was set off by remote control in central Diyarbakir on January 3,targeting a military vehicle passing by with some 50 soldiers on board.

Source : PTI