Two assailants yesterday opened fire at the heavily protected US consulate building in Istanbul, touching off a gunfight with police before fleeing the scene, Turkish media reports said.
One of the assailants, a woman, was later captured at a nearby building and hospitalized. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, quoting unnamed police sources, said she has been identified as a member of a banned leftist group. The Istanbul governor’s office said police were searching for a second woman involved in the attack.
Anadolu named the captured assailant as Hatice Asik, 42, and said she is a member of the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C). The group claimed responsibility for a 2013 suicide attack on the US embassy in Ankara, which killed a Turkish security guard.
No one else was injured in the onslaught.
Hours earlier, an overnight bomb attack at a police station in Istanbul injured three policemen and seven civilians, and caused a fire that collapsed part of the three-story building. Police said the assailants exploded a car bomb near the station. Unknown assailants later fired on officers inspecting the scene of the explosion, sparking another gunfight with police that killed a member of the police inspection team and two assailants.
There were no immediate claims of responsibility and it was not known if the attack on the police was connected to the consulate assault.
Kurdish rebels in the southeastern province of Sirnak yesterday fired at a helicopter carrying conscripts who had either finished their term of duty or were taking leave, killing one of them and injuring another, the military said. Four police officers were also killed in Sirnak Province when their armored vehicle was attacked with a roadside bomb, the Dogan news agency reported.
The Kurdish rebel group and the DHKP-C both have Marxist origins and have cooperated in the past.
The attacks come amid a sharp spike in violence between Turkey’s security forces and rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
Turkey is also taking a more active role against the Islamic State group, formerly known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. Last month, it conducted aerial strikes against Islamic State-held positions in Syria and agreed to let the US-led coalition use its bases for its fight against the extremists.
The move followed a suicide bombing blamed on the Islamic State group which killed 32 people, and Islamic militants firing at Turkish soldiers from across the border in Syria, killing one soldier.
On Sunday, the US military announced that a detachment of six F-16 aircraft and about 300 personnel had arrived at Turkey’s southern Incirlik Air Base to join the fight against the Islamic State group.
Turkey last month carried out a major security sweep, detaining about 1,300 people suspected of links to terror organizations, including the PKK, the Islamic State group and the DHKP-C.
The US Embassy said US officials were working with Turkish authorities to investigate the incident.
Police holding machine guns yesterday blocked off streets leading to the consulate. The building, which is surrounded by fortified walls, was intact and its flag was flying.
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