Kurdistan Freedom Falcons TAK threatens attacks on Turkish cities, tourist sites

Kurdistan Freedom Falcons TAK threatens attacks on Turkish cities, tourist sites

Posted on June 7, 2017

DIYARBAKIR-AMED, Turkey’s Kurdish region,— The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) group that has carried out several deadly attacks against Turkey’s security forces has vowed more “intense” activities and declared Turkey’s cities and tourist sites as its “battlegrounds.”

The TAK, a splinter group of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), published a statement on Tuesday: “The whole world should know that the [Turkish government] is our enemy.”

Accusing Ankara of massacre of Kurds, torture, displacement, and destruction of historical and residential areas, TAK warned that Turkey is not a safe country for investment or tourism. “All the cities of Turkey… are our battlegrounds and our actions will be much more intense than in the past.”

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.

They claim Abdullah Ocalan, founder of the PKK, as their leader but have said they severed ties with that organization as they could no longer accept what they called the “passive struggle methods” of the PKK.

TAK’s stated aim is to oppose Turkey’s repression of the Kurdish minority and to avenge the deaths of Kurds killed by Turkish authorities. They have deliberately targeted the tourism industry in an effort to damage the country economically.

TAK has claimed responsibility for several deadly attacks in Turkey in 2016. In November , the Falcons claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack on governor’s office in southern Turkey’s Adana province.

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

The TAK group claimed responsibility for twin bombings that killed 44 Turkish police officers, and wounded more than 150 outside an Istanbul soccer stadium on Dec. 10.

A week later, the TAK also claimed responsibility for a car bomb attack killed 13 Turkish soldiers and wounded 56.

In January 2017 TAK group claimed responsibility for a car bomb and gun attack that left two people dead near the courthouse in the Turkish city of Izmir.



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.

Activists have accused the Turkish security forces of causing huge destruction to urban centres and killing Kurdish civilians.

In March 2017, the Turkish security forces accused by UN of committing serious abuses during operations against Kurdish militants in the nation’s southeast.

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.

http://ekurd.net/kurdistan-falcons-threatens-turkish-2017-06-07