The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks — known as the TAK — claimed responsibility for this week’s deadly bombing in Turkey’s capital, calling it “revenge” for Turkish military actions and warning tourists that their lives could be taken next.
The group, which is a splinter group of the PKK, described the attack as a “suicide revenge mission” in retaliation for Turkish military operations in the southeastern Turkish district of Cizre.
“This act was a revenge (for) the massacre of wounded civilians in basements in Cizre,” the group said in a statement posted to its website. “As TAK (has) declared before … we will act against every attack on the Kurdish people.”
At least 28 people were killed and 61 injured in an explosion Wednesday targeting military vehicles in central Ankara.
The Turkish government has claimed the attack was jointly carried out by a member of the YPG, the Kurdish fighting force in Syria, and PKK members based in Turkey, according to the semi-official Anadolu news agency.
The TAK statements — including one in Turkish and another in English — don’t mention any of those groups. Instead, they blast what they call Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s “fascist dictatorship” and vow more bloodshed as part of “our war of taking revenge.”
The English-langage statement also comes with a warning for any would-be Turkish tourists.
“Tourism is one of the important sources feeding the dirty and special war, so it is a major target we aim to destroy,” the TAK said. “We warn the foreign and native tourists not to go to the tourist … areas in Turkey.
“We are not responsible for who will die in the attacks targeting those areas,” the statement says. “Turkey is not able (and will never be) to save you and its own people.”