Turkish police on Tuesday killed two attackers who had just attacked police officers guarding the Istanbul courthouse, injuring three of them and three civilians, the Interior Ministry reported.
Turkish police on Tuesday killed two attackers who had just attacked police officers guarding the Istanbul courthouse, injuring three of them and three civilians, the Interior Ministry reported. “A terrorist attack took place today against the checkpoint at Gate C of the Caglayan Courthouse,” Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on “X”. The two attackers, a man and a woman, “identified as members of the DHKP-C terrorist group, were neutralized,” he added. The injured were hospitalized.
An investigation opened for “terrorism”
The minister did not specify what weapons were used in the attack. Passersby said they heard shots, but they could not be attributed at this stage to the police or the attackers. The Minister of Justice announced the opening of an investigation for “terrorism”. All entry and exit to the Caglayan Courthouse has been temporarily suspended.
Described as “terrorist” by Ankara and its Western allies, the radical Marxist-Leninist organization DHKP-C has claimed several attacks in the past in Turkey. The far-left armed group “Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party”, founded almost 50 years ago, does not generally attack the Turkish armed forces but rather targets American and “imperialist” interests. NATO.
Turkey regularly faces attacks
It is notably on the official list of terrorist organizations of the European Union and the United States, which offered three million dollars in 2014 for the capture of its leaders. A suicide bomber blew himself up in 2013 in front of the United States embassy in Ankara, killing a Turkish guard. The group also carried out an attack on the Istanbul courthouse in 2015, killing the then prosecutor, Mehmet Selim Kiraz.
Several attacks attributed to or claimed by different armed groups have recently targeted Istanbul and Ankara. A man was killed at the end of January in Istanbul during mass in an Italian Catholic church during an attack claimed by the jihadist group Islamic State. And two police officers were injured in October during an attack claimed by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) against the headquarters of the Turkish Interior Ministry in Ankara.