Turkish police on Tuesday killed two attackers who had just attacked police officers guarding the Istanbul courthouse, wounding three of them and three civilians, the Interior Ministry reported.
“Today a terrorist attack took place against the checkpoint at Gate C of the Caglayan Courthouse,” Minister Ali Yerlikaya announced on “X.”
The two attackers, a man and a woman, “identified as members of the terrorist group DHKP-C, have been neutralized,” he added.
The injured were taken to hospital.
The minister did not say which weapons were used in the attack.
Passers-by reported hearing shots, but at this point they could not be attributed to the police or the attackers.
The Minister of Justice announced the opening of an investigation into “terrorism”.
All entrance and exit to the Caglayan Courthouse was temporarily closed.
The radical Marxist-Leninist organization DHKP-C, described as “terrorist” by Ankara and its Western allies, has claimed responsibility for several attacks in Turkey in the past.
The far-left armed group “Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party,” founded almost 50 years ago, does not fundamentally attack the Turkish armed forces, but rather targets American and “imperialist” interests. NATO.
In particular, it is on the official list of terrorist organizations of the European Union and the United States, which in 2014 allocated three million dollars for the capture of its leaders.
A suicide bomber blew himself up outside the U.S. Embassy in Ankara in 2013, killing a Turkish security guard.
The group also carried out an attack on the Istanbul courthouse in 2015, killing then-prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz.
Several attacks attributed to or claimed by various armed groups have recently targeted Istanbul and Ankara.
A man was killed in an attack by the Islamic State jihadist group in Istanbul during a service at an Italian Catholic church in late January.
And two police officers were injured in an October attack by the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on the Turkish Interior Ministry headquarters in Ankara.