Kurdish militants claim responsibility for deadly attack on Turkish defense firm

BAGHDAD (AP) — A banned Kurdish militant group on Friday claimed responsibility for an attack on the headquarters of a key defense company in Ankara that killed at least five people.

A statement from the military wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, said Wednesday’s attack on the premises of the aerospace and defense company TUSAS was carried out by two members of its so-called “Immortal Battalion” in response to Turkish “massacres” and other actions in Kurdish regions.

A man and a woman stormed TUSAS’ premises on the outskirts of Ankara, setting off explosives and opening fire. Four TUSAS employees were killed there. The assailants arrived on the scene in a taxi that they had commandeered by killing its driver. More than 20 people were injured in the attack.

The woman assailant took her own life by detonating an explosive device after being injured in an exchange of fire at the entrance of the complex, Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said. The male attacker hurled hand grenades at approaching security forces, then also detonated himself in the restroom of a nearby building “realizing there was no way out,” the minister said.

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Turkey blamed the attack on the PKK and immediately launched a series of aerial strikes on locations and facilities suspected to be used by the militant group in northern Iraq or by its affiliates in northern Syria.

The attack on TUSAS came at a time of growing signs of a possible new attempt at dialogue to end the more than four-decade-old conflict between the PKK and Turkey’s military.

Earlier this week, the leader of Turkey’s far-right nationalist party that’s allied with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan raised the possibility that Abdullah Ocalan, the PKK’s imprisoned leader, could be granted parole if he renounces violence and disbands his organization.

Ocalan, who is serving a life sentence on a prison island off Istanbul, said in a message conveyed by his nephew on Thursday that he was ready to work for peace.

The PKK’s military wing, the People’s Defense Center, said, however, that the attack was not related to the latest “political agenda,” insisting it was planned long before.

It said TUSAS was chosen as a target because weapons produced there “killed thousands of civilians, including children and women, in Kurdistan.”

TUSAS designs, manufactures and assembles civilian and military aircraft, unmanned aerial vehicles and other defense industry and space systems. Its defense systems have been credited as key to Turkey gaining an upper hand in its fight against Kurdish militants.

On Friday, an Iraqi security official said Turkish warplanes intensified their airstrikes on sites belonging to the PKK and other loyal forces in northern Iraq’s Sinjar district. The intensive bombing targeted tunnels, headquarters and military points of the PKK and the Sinjar Protection Units inside the Sinjar Mountain area.

A local official and a security official said the bombings killed five Yazidis. The officials spoke on condition of anonymity in line with regulations.

The Turkish defense ministry said 34 alleged PKK targets including caves, shelters, depots and other facilities were hit in an aerial operation overnight. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency said drones operated by the national intelligence agency have struck 120 suspected sites since Wednesday’s attack.

The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Thursday that the Turkish warplanes and drones struck bakeries, a power station, oil facilities and local police checkpoints. At least 12 civilians were killed and 25 others were wounded.

The People’s Defense Center statement claimed there were no casualties among PKK fighters in the airstrikes.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan told a group of journalists on his return from a trip to Russia late Thursday that the two TUSAS assailants had infiltrated from Syria, but did not provide details.

Addressing a defense industry fair in Istanbul on Friday, he said Turkey was determined to stamp out the militant group.

“Although our pain is great because of our martyrs, our determination to fight against the scoundrels is much greater,” Erdogan said. “We will continue to crush those who think they can make us step back with such treachery.”

On Friday, Turkish police detained 176 suspected PKK members in operations across Turkey, the Interior Ministry said.

Police also detained a man who hurled rocks at the entrance of the headquarters of Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy Party, DEM, Anadolu reported. DEM party spokeswoman Aysegul Dogan said on the media platform X that the entrance door and windows were broken in the attack.

The PKK has been fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. It is considered a terrorist group by Turkey and its Western allies.

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Associated Press writer Suzan Fraser contributed from Ankara, Turkey.