Kurdistan Freedom Falcons TAK claims Kayseri bombing on Turkish army.

DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey’s Kurdish region,— A Kurdish militant group on Tuesday claimed responsibility for the car bomb attack on a bus transporting off-duty military personnel, killing 14 Turkish soldiers in Kayseri city on Dec. 17.

The claim was made by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), seen as an splinter group of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the pro-PKK Firat news agency said.

According to the TAK statement, the action of self-sacrifice that targeted the Turkish Kayseri Mountain Commando Brigade soldiers was carried out by their militant Çekdar Xebat in the name of Martyr Şervan-Andok Vengeance Team.

The TAK identified the assailant as a 26-year-old man from eastern Turkish city of Van.

The TAK said that “Turkish soldiers from Kayseri Mountain Commando Brigade have participated in the genocidal war waged against the Kurdish people for many years, and shed the blood of thousands of Kurds.”

TAK vowed that they will take revenge on the murderer crew that have a part in the savage attacks carried out in Turkish Kurdistan, and enhance their merciless battle against Turkish state fascism that aims to suppress the Kurdish people further every day.

On Dec. 11, the TAK has claimed responsibility for twin attacks on Turkish police that ripped through the heart of Istanbul, killing 38 Turkish police officers.

In November , the Falcons claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on governor’s office in southern Turkey’s Adana province that killed two people and wounded 30.

Some observers say there is strong evidence that TAK is a splinter group led by commanders who have split from the PKK because of dissatisfaction with its tactics, along the lines of the Real IRA and the IRA.

On November 6, the TAK claimed a bombing on a Turkish police headquarters in the southeastern Kurdish city of Diyarbakir that killed 11.

The Falcons have said they were behind a February 17 suicide attack in Ankara that killed 28 Turkish security forces, the March 13 strike in the capital that killed 34 and a June 7 car bombing in Istanbul which left 11 people dead.

Since July 2015, Turkey initiated a controversial military campaign against the PKK in the country’s southeastern Kurdish region after Ankara ended a two-year ceasefire agreement. Since the beginning of the campaign, Ankara has imposed several round-the-clock curfews, preventing civilians from fleeing regions where the military operations are being conducted.

Observers say the crackdown has taken a heavy toll on the Kurdish civilian population and accuse Turkey of using collective punishment against the minority. Activists have accused the security forces of causing huge destruction to urban centres and killing Kurdish civilians.

The PKK took up arms in 1984 against the Turkish state, which still denies the constitutional existence of Kurds, to push for greater autonomy for the Kurdish minority who make up around 22.5 million of the country’s 79-million population.

A large Kurdish community in Turkey and worldwide openly sympathise with PKK rebels and Abdullah Ocalan, who founded the PKK group in 1974, and has a high symbolic value for most Kurds in Turkey and worldwide according to observers.

(With files from Fiiratnews.com | Agencie)

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