Car explodes outside barracks in Turkey's Iskenderun port

ISTANBUL (Reuters) - A car exploded outside a military barracks in the Turkish port town of Iskenderun on Thursday, injuring four people, in what a local news agency said was a bomb attack.

The Dogan news agency said the car, which was packed with explosives, blew up 150 metres from the entrance to the barracks shortly before a military vehicle had been due to pass and that the blast injured at least three passengers in a civilian car.

“There was an explosion and we can confirm four people are slightly injured. The cause is still under investigation,” Ragip Kilic, police chief in Hatay province, told Reuters.

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Iskenderun lies on the Mediterranean coast in Hatay, which also borders Syria. The Turkish military has dispatched troops and equipment from the town to help secure the border in recent months as the conflict in Syria deepens.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but Kurdish militants have carried out similar attacks in the past.

The Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) - designated a terrorist group by Turkey, the United States and European Union - has carried out a steady stream of attacks on military targets, stepping up a 28-year-old insurgency.

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Fighting between the army and the PKK intensified over the summer, a development which Ankara sees as linked to the chaos in Syria. Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has accused Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad of arming the PKK militants.

(Reporting by Hamdi Istanbullu and Seltem Iyigun; Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Myra MacDonald)