US consulate in Turkey targeted in wave of attacks

An outlawed radical Turkish Marxist group on Monday claimed responsibility for a gun attack on the US consulate in Istanbul.

The Revolutionary People's Liberation Front (DHKP-C) said on its website that one of its female militants carried out the attack.

It named her as Hatice Asik and said she was later arrested and taken to hospital after being shot by police.

"Our struggle will continue until imperialism and its collaborators leave our country and every parcel of our homeland is cleared of US bases," it said, praising Asik as "our honour".

Asik, along with another armed individual, launched the gun attack against the well fortified US consulate in the quiet district of Istinye on the Bosphorus on the outskirts of Istanbul, Turkish television and state media reported. There were no reports of casualties.

The attack came after a suspected suicide bomber in a vehicle packed with explosives attacked a police station in the Istanbul district of Sultanbeyli, just after midnight Monday, wounding 10 people including three police, Anatolia news agency reported.

Also on Monday, four Turkish police officers were killed in a roadside bomb attack in the southeast blamed on Kurdish militants, local media reported.

The mine explosion took place in the Silopi district of Sirnak province bordering Iraq and Syria, the private Dogan news agency said.

Meanwhile, in a separate incident, one Turkish soldier was killed when Kurdish militants attacked a military helicopter with rocket launchers as it was transporting personnel in Sirnak's Beytussebap district, Dogan said.

The attack prompted an air operation by the Turkish military with Cobra helicopters bombing the area.

The violence between Turkey's security forces and the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has intensified since last month following a suicide bombing in a town on the Syrian border blamed on the Islamic State.

Since then, Ankara has launched a two-pronged offensive to bomb IS militants in Syria and PKK rebels in northern Iraq and southeast Turkey - who are bitter enemies themselves.

So far, the operation has focused largely on Kurdish rebels. he PKK, designated as a terrorist organisation by Turkey, the EU and the United States, took up arms for self-rule in the southeast in 1984, and the conflict has since claimed tens of thousands of lives.

Anatolia also reported that around 390 "terrorists" have been killed in the air campaign in Turkey and northern Iraq with 400 wounded.

Turkish authorities have arrested more than 1,300 people since late last month in police raids nationwide targeting suspected members of the PKK as well as IS and the DHKP-C.

The spiral of violence sparked by the killing of 32 pro-Kurdish activists in a bombing by suspected IS jihadists last month has left a 2013 ceasefire between Ankara and the PKK in tatters.