Turkey: 2 'terrorists' killed, 6 others injured in shootout outside Istanbul court

Six people were injured when a man and a woman from a communist “terrorist” organization stormed a security checkpoint outside Istanbul’s main courthouse on Tuesday, according to officials. Turkish police shot and killed them. The attackers were members of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a fringe communist organization that has carried out sporadic attacks in Turkey since the 1980s, according to Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya. The group made no initial admission of guilt. “While the terrorists who attempted to attack were neutralised, six people, including three police officers and three citizens, were injured,” Yerlikaya said in a social media statement. Turkey has started to recover from a decade-long period of violence marked by frequent bombings and other acts connected to Kurdish operators and Islamist fighters. Ankara, the capital, and Istanbul are still on high alert despite the fact that those incidents have mostly subsided. Two attackers opened fire inside a Catholic church in Istanbul last month, killing one individual. Islamic State group militants claimed responsibility for the incident. Kurdish operatives claimed responsibility for an attack on the government sector of Ankara’s capital in October that left two police officers injured. In retaliation, Turkey increased its airstrikes on Kurdish targets in Iraq and Syria. (With agency inputs)