Day of violence in Istanbul leaves at least 4 dead
ISTANBUL - Two women opened fire at the heavily protected US Consulate in Istanbul Monday, while assailants exploded a car bomb at a police station then fired on police inspecting the scene, in a day of heavy violence in Turkey's largest city.
In the southeast of the country a roadside bomb killed four police, and Kurdish rebels attacked a helicopter, killing a conscript. There has been a recent sharp spike in violence between Turkey's security forces and rebels of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, as Turkey has attacked PKK targets in Iraq in tandem with airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria.
One of the consulate attackers was later shot and taken into custody in a nearby building and hospitalized. The far-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front, or DHKP-C, identified her as 51-year-old Hatice Asik, and said she was a member of the group, though it did not directly claim responsibility for the attack. The DHKP-C and the PKK both have Marxist origins and have cooperated in the past, though there was no immediate indication of PKK involvement in this attack.
The second woman was still being hunted. There were no other casualties.
