PKK splinter group claims responsibility for Diyarbakır bomb attack

DİYARBAKIR

REUTERS photo

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), a splinter group from the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), claimed responsibility on Nov. 6 for a bomb attack that occurred in the southeastern province of Diyarbakır early on Nov. 4, which killed 11 people and wounded hundreds. 

According to a report by the Fırat News Agency (ANF), a militant identified as Kemal Hakkari staged the deadly bomb attack.

On Nov. 5, Reuters reported that the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) was behind the bomb attack, quoting the jihadist group’s statement on Amaq News Agency.

However, the Diyarbakır Governor’s Office later announced that the PKK staged the attack with a three-ton bomb-laden vehicle in two separate statements.

In the latest statement, the governor’s office noted that three separate radio communications of the militants pointed to PKK’s hand in the attack and that other reports only aimed to protect the organization.

Visiting the site of the attack on Nov. 6, Diyarbakır Governor Hüseyin Aksoy said the attack in the province primarily targeted civilians.

Aksoy also added that damage assessment works had begun with 22 different teams. Ten families, whose houses were damaged after the attack, were accommodated in hotels.

Eleven people, two of whom were police officers, were killed and more than 100 were wounded when a bomb-laden vehicle was detonated near an anti-riot police station in the Bağlar district of Diyarbakır.

The death toll in the bomb attack rose to 11 from nine on Nov. 5 when two other wounded civilians succumbed to their injuries in hospital.

The attack came hours after Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) deputies, including co-chairs Selahattin Demirtaş and Figen Yüksekdağ were detained early on Nov. 4 over their alleged links to the PKK.

Nine HDP deputies, including Demirtaş and Yüksekdağ, were later arrested.