Two people opened fire on the US consulate in Istanbul this morning without any injuries or fatality recorded. The police responded with gunfire before the assailants, a man and a woman according to Cihan News Agency, escaped from the place located in the Sariyer district of the Turkish city. According to local media reports, the woman who participated in the shooting was arrested hours after the attack after being shot by police who cordoned off the place.
Turkish officials said that the alleged perpetrators of the attack on the US consulate in Istanbul are members of the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary Party-group National Liberation Front (DHKP-C). The woman would have arrested Hatice Asik, a member of the DHKP-C has already been arrested and released in the past, according to the Turkish newspaper ‘Cumhuriye Gazetesi’.
“There was an incident this morning near the Consulate General of the United States in Istanbul,” the consulate said in a brief press release. “We are working with the Turkish authorities to investigate what happened. The Consulate General will be closed to the public until further notice.”
The images from the security camera in the building show how effective various police equipped with rifles blocked the streets adjacent to the consulate after the shooting.
The US consulate attack came just hours after a suicide car bombing at a police station in the suburb of Sultanbeyli, east of the city. The blast wounded 10 people, including seven civilians. But it was all a trap and, hours later, when the police examined the scene, the officers were fired from long-range weapons. An agent in the first skirmish was killed and two attackers were killed.
More attacks
After these initial two attacks more came. This wave of bombings has rocked Turkey today from one extreme to another, from the western city of Istanbul to the most south-eastern regions, attacks by armed groups and have caused nine people dead and dozens injured.
Ten people, including three policemen, were wounded when a car bomb embedded into the headquarters. Several hours later, officers guarding the site were attacked by a sniper, and the Turkish police explosives expert was killed by gunfire.
A few hours later, they occurred in Sirnak province in southeastern Turkey, two new attacks, allegedly perpetrated by the PKK against the Turkish police and army.
A suspected PKK command fired on a military helicopter carrying soldiers who had just finished his military service. One young man died while another was wounded.
Meanwhile, in the town of Silopi, Sirnak also a remote-controlled bomb exploded by an armored and four police were killed and another was seriously injured.
The policemen were attacked when their vehicle was about to enter the city, where last Friday three civilians and a policeman in clashes between PKK and alleged security forces were killed.
At the end of the day there was another simultaneous attack, allegedly by command of the PKK against Turkish security facilities in the town of Lice in Diyarbakir province, but without causing casualties or injuries.
Increases tension in Turkey
Turkey lives in a state of permanent tension and episodes of violence after last July 20, 32 Kurds were killed by an alleged member of the Islamic State (IS) in the city of Suruç. The exchange of blows between the Turkish police and members of the Workers Party of Kurdistan (PKK) have been continuing since. Turkey has initiated what officials described as “a synchronized war on terror” PKK militants attacking jihadists and Islamic State were in parallel but without the same intensity.
Turkish security forces have killed more than 400 PKK militants in two weeks of aerial bombardment said yesterday the Turkish state news agency Anadolu. That some 850 suspected members of the Kurdish militia have also been arrested in recent weeks is estimated.
Cemil Bayik, one of the leaders of the PKK, has accused Turkey of protecting the Islamic state through violence campaign against the Kurdish militants. Speaking to the BBC, Bayik denounced what for many is a double set of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan: “The Turks say they are fighting against the Islamic state … but in fact its aim is to combat the PKK to limit their ability to fight against IS. ”
“Erdogan is behind the massacres of IS [referring especially to attack in Suruç]. Its aim is to prevent the growing Kurdish opposition against him, thus enhancing the ‘Turkification’ of the country,” he lamented.
Moreover, the attack on the US consulate in Istanbul comes after the collaboration between Turkey and the United States to deal with the Islamic state in Syria intensified last week.
Thus, the United States took place on Tuesday the first air strike on Syria through a drone that took off from the Incirlik base in southern Turkey. A Turkish official confirmed the attack took place near Raqqa, northern Syria city of the Islamic State (IS) self-declared capital. Speaking to the Anadolu Agency, Pentagon spokeswoman, Laura Seal, expressed satisfaction with the cooperation between the two countries: “Because to have a base in Turkey, the coalition (referring to the coalition of countries that fight against EI ) It has now a new strategic location from which to attack when necessary, “he said.
The official representatives of the United States in Turkey were already subject to armed attacks in the past. Militants linked to the Marxist-Leninist Revolutionary National Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), also the subject of the recent campaign of the Turkish security forces and declared a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, perpetrated a suicide attack in the US Embassy in Ankara in 2013, killing a Turkish security guard.
