Kurdish group claims responsibility for terror attack in Turkey

A family member of Wednesday’s auto bombing victims mourns outside a morgue in Ankara, Turkey.

The death toll of a vehicle bomb that exploded in Turkey has risen to 28 people, with another 60 injured.

In a statement posted on its website, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons group said it carried out the attack in Ankara to avenge Turkish military operations against Kurdish rebels in south-east Turkey.

Erdogan expressed his grief over the fact that another attack has been leveled against Ankara a mere few months after the October 2015 attack in the center of the city which left 102 people, mostly Kurds, participating in a peace rally dead.

“By claiming that PYD is responsible for the explosions in Turkey, Ankara merely wants to create an excuse for the invasion of Rojava (a region of Syria located near the border with Turkey and populated predominantly by Kurds), nothing more”, Xalo explained.

It has also been battling militants in its own southeast from the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who have fought a three-decade insurgency for Kurdish autonomy.

The United States has designated both the PKK and TAK as terrorist organizations, but it has not applied the same label to the PYD or its armed wing – much to Erdogan’s chagrin.

A auto laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights near Turkey armed forces’ headquarters in the administrative heart of Ankara late on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the Turkish government had accused forces linked with the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia of the terror attack in Ankara. Turkey’s assertion that the YPG was involved in the terror attack could stress its relations with the United States over its links to the group, but also may alienate the YPG from U.S. officials.

“It has been revealed that this attack was carried out by members of the terrorist organisation in cooperation with a YPG member who infiltrated [Turkey] from Syria”, Davutoglu said on Thursday.

In a televised statement, a furious Mr Davutoglu said: “I am warning Russian Federation once more”.

The attack risks further straining ties between Turkey and the United States, which works with the YPG as an effective force in the fight against Islamic State (IS) jihadists in Syria.

The arrests came as Turkey’s military pushed ahead with a cross-border artillery shelling campaign against US-backed Syrian Kurdish militia positions in northern Syria.

“Our determination to retaliate to attacks that aim against our unity and future grows stronger with every action”, Erdogan said. Follow Michal Bardavid on Twitter @michalbardavidTurkey has been shaken by the terrorist bombing that took place on Wednesday evening at the capital Ankara.