Ankara: The Turkish government on Monday blamed a radical Marxist group for a gun attack on the US consulate in Istanbul, an official told AFP.
"The attack on the consulate is linked with the DHKP-C," the official told AFP on condition of anonymity, referring to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Front (DHKP-C) which claimed a 2013 suicide attack at the US embassy in Ankara.
The same official said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was behind a suicide attack on a police station in Istanbul that resulted in clashes that left three militants and one top police official dead.
Two assailants opened fire at the heavily protected U.S. Consulate building in Istanbul on Monday, touching off a gunfight with police before fleeing the scene, Turkish media reports said.
One of the assailants, a woman, was later captured at a nearby building and hospitalized. Turkey's state-run Anadolu Agency, quoting unnamed police sources, said she has been identified as a member of a banned leftist group. The Istanbul governor's office said police were searching for a second woman involved in the attack.
Anadolu named the captured assailant as 42-year-old Hatice Asik and said she is a member of the far-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front, or DHKP-C. The group claimed responsibility for a 2013 suicide attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, which killed a Turkish security guard.
No one else was injured in the onslaught.
