One police officer killed after car bomb attack against Istanbul police station

ISTANBUL - Doğan News Agency

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A police officer and two gunmen have been killed in clashes with gunmen following a car bomb attack on a police station in Istanbul’s Sultanbeyli district.

Istanbul Police Department Bomb Inspection and Deactivation Bureau officer Beyazıt Çeken was killed when gunmen opened fire at police officers on duty inspecting the Fatih Police Station in Sultanbeyli around 6:45 a.m. on Aug. 10, hours after the police station was subjected to a car bomb attack around 1 a.m. which left three police officers and seven civilians injured.

A large number of additional police forces were dispatched to the scene following the car bomb attack as the police station partly collapsed and a large number of police vehicles around it were severely damaged following the nighttime explosion.

Two terrorists, including a woman, were captured dead and their bodies were taken to the forensic institute in Istanbul’s Yenibosna neighborhood.

A recently founded far-leftist organization called the People’s Defense Unit claimed responsibility for both the gunfire and the car bombing in a Twitter posting on Aug. 10, saying four of its militants were also killed in the morning clashes.

The group came to light when it claimed the bombing of Adımlar Magazine in Istanbul on March 25, which left one dead. 

The magazine allegedly had close ties with the illegal Turkish Islamist group the Islamic Great East Raiders Front (IBDA-C), organized campaigns demanding the release of Salih Mirzabeyoğlu, the leader of the group, and supported the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL).

Meanwhile, a group of assailants hurled stones at the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s (HDP) Sultanbeyli District Bureau on Aug. 10 night and vandalized the conference hall of the bureau, with no casualties reported.