Turkey sustained an unprecedented slew of militant attacks Monday, the product of a controversial “war on terror” instigated by an interim government under the guidance of President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. In recent weeks the Turkish military has carried out hundreds of air strikes while police have arrested more than a thousand suspects linked to ISIS, the Kurdish militant group the PKK, and far-leftist groups including the DHKP-C. Almost all suspects in Monday’s attacks belonged to the latter two groups. In total, six security personnel were killed in attacks carried out in Istanbul and the Kurdish southeastern region, raising concerns about Turkey launching anti-terror operations at a time when it has no elected government and is facing likely snap elections in November amid continuing regional unrest.
In the early hours of Monday, a car bomb exploded in front of a police station in Sultanbeyli, Istanbul and was followed by a fire fight which left one police officer and two gunmen dead. The attack was claimed by the People’s Defence Unit, a relatively unknown far-leftist organization with alleged links to Islamist groups. At around 8 a.m., two gunmen opened fire on the U.S consulate in Istanbul; one of them, a woman, was injured and arrested. The attack was claimed by the DHKP-C, which was also responsible for an attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara in 2013.
Later in the morning, the PKK remotely detonated an IED on a road in Silopi, south eastern Turkey, killing four policemen in an armored car; shortly afterwards, PKK militants shot at a helicopter in nearby Beytüşşebap, killing one soldier. Later in the day PKK militants attacked military helicopters in Tunceli and policemen in Diyarbakir.
Full Article: Erdoğan’s ‘election war’ – POLITICO.
