ISTANBUL • Turkey was shaken by twin attacks on the US consulate and a police station in Istanbul, with a female militant shot and at least eight people killed in separate attacks, weeks after Ankara launched a crackdown on the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and other far-left militants.
Turkey, a Nato member, has been in a heightened state of alert since starting its "synchronised war on terror" last month, including air strikes against ISIS fighters in Syria and Kurdistan Workers Party militants in northern Iraq. It has also rounded up hundreds of suspected militants at home.
A far-left group behind a 2013 suicide bombing of the US embassy in Ankara claimed responsibility for the gun attack at the consulate.
The outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front, which is considered a terrorist organisation by the United States and Turkey, said that one of its members, Hatice Asik, was involved in the attack.
It called Washington the "arch enemy" of the people of the Middle East and the world.
Police armed with automatic rifles cordoned off streets around the US consulate in Sariyer district after the gun attack. Two women were shot.
Local resident Ahmet Akcay said one of the women fired four or five rounds at security officials and consulate officers and refused to surrender when she was asked to.
The Istanbul governor's office said one woman was later captured wounded. The other female militant was at large after the shooting.
On the other side of Istanbul, a vehicle laden with explosives was used in an attack on a police station, injuring three police officers and seven civilians, police said.
One of the attackers was killed, while two others and a police officer died in a subsequent firefight, the Istanbul governor's office said.
In south-eastern Sirnak province, four police officers were killed when their armoured vehicle was hit by roadside explosives and a soldier died when Kurdish militants opened fire on a military helicopter as it was taking off.
REUTERS, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE
