Turkish warplanes strike PKK targets in southeast

The last police officer killed died in clashes near a police station in Istanbul in the northwest of the country. Elsewhere across Turkey, at least eight people were killed and a dozen injured in a series of incidents aimed at security and police officials.

Two attackers were also killed after police returned fire, Turkey’s semiofficial Anadolu news agency reported.

Two armed female militants launched a gun attack early Monday against the U.S. consulate located on the outskirts of Istanbul.

She had been arrested for providing a house for two DHKP-C militants who attacked an Istanbul police station three years ago, the Hurriyet newspaper reported on its website. There were no injuries or deaths in the attack and it was attributed to a banned group from the far left.

Four police officers were killed when their armored vehicle was hit by roadside explosives in the town of Silopi, the governor’s office in the province of Sirnak said.

On Sunday, the US military announced that a detachment of six F-16 fighter jets have arrived at Turkey’s southern İncirlik Air Base to join the fight against ISIL militants.

There was no claim of responsibility for the Istanbul attacks, but Turkish officials again blamed the PKK. There was a bombing at the station that wounded 10, and gunmen attacked in the wake of the bombing.

The US consulate said in a tweet that it was closed until further notice. Turkey launched airstrikes against the PKK. The move followed a suicide bombing blamed on IS which killed 32 people and IS militants firing at Turkish soldiers from across the border in Syria, killing one soldier.

However, the attack was additionally claimed by a smaller leftist group, the People’s Defence Units (HSB), on its Twitter feed.

Senior PKK figure Cemil Bayik told the BBC in an interview on Monday that Turkey was trying to protect the IS by fighting the PKK, who are bitterly opposed to the Jihadists.

Mainly active in Istanbul, it seeks a Marxist revolution in Turkey among the working classes but also espouses a fiercely anti-Western and anti-NATO agenda. More than 40,000 people have been killed in the conflict.

As the PKK, which has faced Turkish airstrikes on its bases in the mountains of northern Iraq, have increased attacks inside Turkey, Kurdish politicians here have scrambled to rein in the violence and preserve gains they made in the elections. In recent days Turkey’s top religious body, which is overseen by the state, said it would begin distributing anti-Islamic State sermons to mosques around the country.

Monday’s attacks raised fresh concerns about security throughout Turkey in an escalating cycle of violence that has left a 2013 ceasefire agreed by the PKK in tatters.

“The U.S. had barely enough warning to make sure its own forces were out of the way, according to a military source with knowledge of the tension Turkey’s attack caused in the Combined Air and Space Operations Center [CAOC], the allied headquarters in the air war against ISIS [ISIL]”, the online version of the Fox report said.