The remote-controlled bomb was planted along a side street leading to an army barracks. It went off as a military bus passed, killing three sergeants and a 17-year-old daughter of an officer.

Thirteen other people were injured in the blast that the government said was carried out by the Kurdish Workers Party, the PKK, although it hasn't claimed responsibility.

The bus bomb and last week's fatal PKK attacks in the eastern part of the country further infuriated Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Kurdish rebels killed eight soldiers and wounded 14 near the border with Iraq.

Military sources said the soldiers killed 12 of the Marxist separatist PKK, which launched the raid on an isolated military post near the city of Semdinli in Hakkari province.

Military officials also said that Turkish warplanes crossed the border to bomb PKK positions in Iraq.

The PKK raid took place at 2 a.m., a statement by the Turkish General Staff said.

After the raid in southeastern Turkey, Erdogan said on television that the government and military would fight the PKK until they were "annihilated."

After the bus blast, he reiterated his pledge to continue the fight.

"We're not going to surrender to this language of violence. No one has won, the resources of the country have been wasted and the fighting brought nothing but tears and blood."

Istanbul Gov. Huseyin Avni Mutlu said the attack was done "to create divisions, tensions and despair."

The PKK, which is fighting for Kurdish autonomy, seldom claims responsibility for planting bombs bt security authorities often believe they are to blame, as in the July 2008 Istanbul bombings in a busy shopping district which killed 17 people, five of them children and injured more than 150 people.

The first of two bombs was placed in a telephone kiosk around which people gathered after the explosion. A second bomb, around 150 feet away in a trashcan, exploded, doing by far the most damage.

A senior member of the PKK, Zubeyir Aydar, denied they were involved.

Five years earlier two trucks carrying bombs crashed into the Bet Israel and Neve Shalom synagogues in Istanbul, killing six Jews and 21 Muslims. Around 300 people were injured. Islamic militant group IBDA-C, claimed responsibility, but security officials were not convinced.

Sedat Laciner, director of Turkish research center International Strategic Research Organization, said the recent rise in PKK activity is an attempt by the group to control the domestic agenda.

Turkish authorities also issued allegations saying a PKK raid on a military base in the southeast Mediterranean port of Iskenderun may be connected to the May 31 attack by Israeli forces on a Turkish-flagged aid vessel on its way to Gaza.

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