A militant Kurdish group has claimed responsibility for the devastating car bomb attack that killed 37 people and injured at least 125 more in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Sunday.
The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or Tak, said in a statement on its website that the Ankara attack came in retaliation for the continuing security operations in several cities and towns in the predominantly Kurdish south-east, and warned that it would strike again. “We claim the suicide attack that was carried out on the evening of 13 March … in the streets of the capital of the fascist Turkish republic,” the statement read. “We claim this attack targeting centres … where decisions to massacre Kurdish people are made. This action was carried out to avenge the 300 Kurds killed in Cizre as well as our civilians who were wounded.”
The group also said that security forces had been the real target of the bombing and expressed “sadness” about the civilians killed in the attack, but added that such deaths were “inevitable”.
The Tak statement identified the leader of the attack as Seher Çağla Demir, 24, who it said was the first female suicide bomber in its ranks.
Several foreign diplomatic missions in Turkey have issued travel and security warnings, urging citizens to avoid crowded public places and to cut down travel on public transport to a minimum ahead of Newroz, the Kurdish New Year celebrations. The German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, said on Thursday there was “very concrete evidence” that terrorist attacks had been planned against German institutions in Turkey. Germany has closed both its embassy in Ankara and its general consulate in Istanbul because of the threat of a possible imminent attack. The German school and the Goethe Institute in Istanbul have also been shut. A suicide bombing in Istanbul in January killed 12 German tourists.
Turkey has been on high alert after a string of deadly terrorist attacks on its soil. Over 200 people died in five major bombings since July of last year, including the two latest attacks in Ankara.
Tak, a radical Kurdish group that claims to have split from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) but that experts say retains links to it, has also claimed responsibility for the bloody suicide bomb attack that killed 29 people less than a month ago in Ankara. Then the group had threatened that attacks would continue.
The Turkish government has issued blanket curfews and launched massive security operations in the country’s south-east since a ceasefire between the state and the PKK broke down last summer. Scores of civilians have died in the crossfire, and tens of thousands have been displaced by the ongoing violence.
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