DIYARBAKIR, Turkey — Around 8 a.m. Nov. 4, life was just getting animated in Diyarbakir when a white minibus drove to the entrance of the police compound in the Baglar district. Its driver braked hard to avoid crashing into a taxi that cut in front of him. According to closed-circuit security camera recordings that Al-Monitor was allowed to watch, the irate taxi driver got out and angrily marched to the minibus. He opened the door of the minibus and almost immediately started shouting “Bomb, bomb” and ran away. Everyone in the area started running in panic. That was the end of the recording. A massive explosion and a mushroom cloud followed, along with the sound of gunshots.

“Three or four people with shaven faces in a car opened rifle fire and withdrew while firing,” an eyewitness who did not want to be identified told Al-Monitor.

The vicinity of the explosion looked like a war zone with almost all buildings damaged. Chaos prevailed, with people wailing and frantically searching for friends and relatives.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) was the usual suspect in the bombing, especially in Diyarbakir. But reports began coming out that Selahattin Demirtas, the chairman of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), and several other senior HDP officials and parliamentarians were in detention in the compound.