Turkish police killed two attackers linked to a leftist group classified as “terrorist” by authorities after they assaulted police guarding the Istanbul courthouse, resulting in one death and five injuries, according to officials.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed in televised remarks that Turkey “will continue to fight with full determination against all terrorist organizations and their supporters, without any discrimination.”
Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said the attackers, a man and a woman, belonged to the Marxist-Leninist “Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front.”
The wounded were taken to the hospital, where one person succumbed to injuries. The “Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front” did not claim responsibility for the attack.
Meanwhile, entry and exit to the Caglayan Courthouse were temporarily blocked.
Erdogan said in televised remarks, “I congratulate our security forces who eliminated the treacherous attack with timely intervention.”
He added, “Two terrorists, a man, and a woman, were neutralized,” explaining that the attack resulted in injuries to three police officers and three civilians, one of whom died later.
An eyewitness told Agence France-Presse that the attackers opened fire on the police after a brief altercation at a checkpoint leading to the main entrance of the sprawling building, which has been used for some of Turkey’s largest trials.
Turkish Justice Minister Yilmaz Tongu said that police officers prevented a treacherous attack, adding that the prosecutor’s office had launched a comprehensive investigation.
The “Revolutionary People’s Liberation Front,” classified as “terrorist” by Ankara and its Western allies, has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Turkey in the past.
This extremist leftist group, founded nearly 50 years ago, usually does not target the Turkish armed forces but rather American “imperialist” interests and those of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
It was added to the official list of terrorist organizations by the European Union and the United States, which offered a reward of three million dollars in 2014 for the capture of its leaders.
In 2013, a suicide bomber detonated himself outside the US Embassy in Ankara, killing a Turkish guard. The armed group carried out an attack in 2015 against the Istanbul courthouse, resulting in the death of prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz. Recently, several attacks in Istanbul and Ankara have been attributed to or claimed by various armed groups.
