Turkish military says hits 17 Kurdish militant targets in air strikes

One of the attackers was killed during the bombing, while two others and a police officer died in a subsequent firefight, the Istanbul governor’s office said.

Last month, a suicide attack in Suruc – on the country’s Syrian border, which killed 32 people – was blamed on ISIS.

Tensions are high in Turkey after it launched an offensive against Islamic State (IS) jihadists and Kurdish militants following a series of attacks inside Turkey.

The violence began around 1 a.m. Monday in the city’s Sultanbeyli district, police said, when a vehicle-borne bomb exploded near the police station, wounding at least 10 people.

An outlawed radical Turkish Marxist group on Monday claimed responsibility for a gun attack on the US consulate in Istanbul, the latest strike by the secretive organisation.

The Turkish prime minister noted in the interview that it is necessary to create “an area where civilians can stay without any fear of being attacked and killed” in Syria.

There were no immediate claims of responsibility and it was not known if the assaults were connected.

In a separate incident, one Turkish soldier was killed when Kurdish militants attacked a military helicopter with rocket launchers as it was transporting personnel in Sirnak’s Beytussebap district, the Dogan news agency said.

Video footage on Turkish TV showed the woman, cornered in a building, refusing to surrender and shouting, “I did it for my party!” before she was shot by a police officer.

The rising internal violence could complicate U.S. efforts to coordinate more closely with Ankara to weaken Islamic State in nearby Syria and Iraq.

The HDP and the PKK largely share a constituency in Turkey, but they tend to operate separately.

In recent weeks, Turkish authorities have been rounding up hundreds of suspects, including people with alleged links to the PKK.

The PKK is an official U.S.-designated terrorist group of Marx-Leninist leanings, though its supporters insist the PKK has largely abandoned this ideology and fight instead for a free, sovereign Kurdistan.

Another terrorist group, The Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), said one of its members has a hand in the attack and named Washington the “arch enemy” of the population from the Middle East and the world. And they’re skeptical about Turkey’s stepping up its campaign against the Islamic State.

The PKK´s insurgency for greater rights and powers for Turkey’s Kurdish minority began more than 30 years ago and has left tens of thousands dead. The PKK is considered a terrorist group by the United States, European Union and Turkey.

In an escalation of the violence spreading in Turkey since July, security forces in Istanbul exchanged fire with unidentified gunmen Monday hours after a vehicle bomb targeted a police station.

Eyewitness Engin Yuksek said the second female assailant managed to escape after the consulate attack.