Kurdish militant group says it carried out Istanbul bombings that killed 38
A shadowy Kurdish militant group has claimed responsibility for a pair of bombings that killed dozens of people outside a stadium in central Istanbul on Saturday night, escalating an already bloody conflict between Kurdish separatists and the Turkish state. The Washington Post reports.
The little-known Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) — which seeks autonomy for Turkey’s ethnic Kurds and opposes negotiations with the government — announced Sunday that two of its members carried out the attack.
The twin explosions, from a car bomb and separate suicide attack, killed 38 people, including 30 riot police; 155 other people were wounded.
The group, an offshoot of the larger Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), urged Turkish citizens to abandon support for the government.
A “comfortable life” is not possible in Turkey while the conflict continues, TAK said, adding: “The people of Turkey must now say no to this fascism.”
The carnage on Saturday comes as part of a string of terrorist attacks by Kurdish and Islamic State militants across Turkey in recent years.
The violence has threatened to destabilize a nation already roiled by domestic and regional crises. An attempted coup by a rogue faction of the military nearly toppled the government in July.
Authorities on Sunday declared a national day of mourning, and officials vowed to pursue Kurdish militants.
Violence has surged since a peace agreement between the PKK and Turkish government fell apart in 2015, bringing terrorism to Turkish cities and devastation to largely Kurdish areas in the southeast.
Ethnic Kurds — who live across areas of Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran — make up about 20 percent of Turkey’s 75 million people. Analysts say that the TAK militants split with the PKK over negotiations with the government but that the groups maintain strategic ties.