AFP – Turkish police shot dead two left-wing assailants branded “terrorists” by authorities in a raid on a security checkpoint outside Istanbul’s central court on Tuesday, leaving one person dead and five injured. officials announced.
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the attackers were members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party Front (DHKP-C), a far-left group that has carried out regular attacks in Turkey since the 1980s.
DHKP-C initially did not claim responsibility.
The group is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and is fighting American influence in the Middle East and around the world.
In 2014, Washington offered a $3 million bounty for the arrest of the group’s leaders.
“I commend our security forces for intervening in a timely manner and eliminating the treacherous attack,” President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised speech.
“Two terrorists, one female and one male, were neutralized.”
President Erdogan said three police officers and three civilians were injured in the attack, one of whom later died.
Witnesses told AFP that the assailants opened fire on police after a brief altercation at a checkpoint leading to the main gate of the vast building, which has been used for some of Turkey’s biggest trials. did.
“A clash occurred at the exit gate. I saw two people, a man and a woman, firing at the police. The man was shot first. Then the woman fired several more shots. They shot her,” said Mahir Yildiz, 25.
“We heard 20 to 25 gunshots. At that moment there was great panic and fear. We didn’t know which way to go. The police blocked the entrance and exit and herded everyone inside. .”
Police blocked the entrance to the courthouse as a security measure.
– “Hero Police” –
“Heroic police officers thwarted the act of treachery,” Justice Minister Yilmaz Tunku said, adding that prosecutors had launched a “multifaceted investigation.”
Turkey is beginning to emerge from a violent spell that began a decade ago, when it suffered repeated bombings and other attacks linked to jihadists and Kurdish militants.
Although these attacks have largely subsided, Istanbul and the capital Ankara remain on high alert.
Last month, a man was shot dead by two gunmen inside a Catholic church in Istanbul.
The attack was claimed by jihadists from the Islamic State militant group.
In October, two assailants injured two police officers in an attack on a government district in Ankara claimed by Kurdish militants.
Turkey responded by stepping up airstrikes against Kurdish targets in Syria and Iraq.
In one of its most high-profile attacks, DHKP-C carried out a suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in Ankara in 2013, killing a Turkish security guard.
