A Wall Street Journal Roundup

ANKARA, Turkey—Suspected Kurdish rebels detonated a remote-controlled bomb in Istanbul, killing five people and wounding 12 on a bus carrying military personnel and their families, Istanbul Gov. Hüseyin Avni Mutlu said on Tuesday.

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European Pressphoto AgencyTurkish forensic officers survey the scene of Tuesday’s bomb blast in Istanbul.

The state-run Anatolia news agency said the dead in the early-morning attack included the 17-year-old daughter of an officer.

Kurdish rebels fighting for autonomy in Turkey’s Kurdish-dominated southeast have dramatically stepped up their attacks on Turkish targets this month and had threatened to expand their war to cities in the west of the country. Local CNN-Turk television said there was no immediate claim of responsibility but that Kurdish rebels are believed to be behind the attack. The rebel group rarely claims responsibility for its attacks.

The Turkish military said in a statement on Tuesday that members of the separatist Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, attacked a gendarmerie post in the southeastern town of Silvan with light arms and grenades late Monday, killing one soldier. The military said five PKK militants were killed during the clash.

The statement also said that Turkish troops clashed with a group of PKK militants in the northeastern Gumushane-Kelkit region early Tuesday, killing two.

Twelve soldiers died in PKK attacks over the weekend, triggering nationwide anger and putting pressure on the government to adopt tougher tactics. On Tuesday, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan pledged in a speech to parliament to continue with a government initiative to give ethnic Kurds greater cultural rights.