Kurdish Group Claims Responsibility for Istanbul Attack

The warning from the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) came as the group also claimed a vehicle bomb attack in central Istanbul earlier this week, raising fears the country’s largest city and economic powerhouse could become the scene of more carnage.

Seven of the fatalities in Tuesday’s Istanbul attack were said to be members of the security forces, while four civilians were also killed.

On Thursday, a police officer who was wounded in the Midyat attack died in a hospital, raising the death toll to six.

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), claimed Tuesday’s bombing in an online statement.

The attack came a day after a strike against the security forces in the heart of Istanbul claimed 11 lives, including several police officers.

Its attacks on Turkish security personnel come as a response to worsening violence in the country’s south-east where the state has been locked in battle with the PKK since peace negotiations between the two collapsed past year.

Forensic experts (L) and firefighters stand beside a Turkish police bus which was targeted in a bomb attack in a central Istanbul district. A peace process undertaken in late 2012 collapsed in July, and the conflict is at its deadliest since the 1990s.

The PKK is fighting for autonomy for Turkey’s Kurds in the southeast.

U.S. Vice-President Joe Biden called Turkey’s recently appointed prime minister, Yildirim, to express condolences for the terrorist attacks in Istanbul and Midyat, according to a White House statement.

A vehicle bomb exploded at a police station in the Turkish south-eastern province of Mardin, the Sabah newspaper reported June 8.

After decades of violence against the Turkish state, the PKK were chief suspects from the start. Turkish planes have been regularly conducting cross-border aerial operations against the PKK since last summer.

Turkey also announced a series of fresh airstrikes in south-eastern Turkey and northern Iraq this week, saying it was hitting PKK bases.

Turkey’s government supports the rebels battling Assad.