Former member of Turkish pro-Kurdish party identified as perpetrator of attack in Ankara | Video

Last update:October 25, 2024, 11:22 AM CEST

Turkish media consider Mine Sevjin Alcicek to be an attacker from Ankara. Meanwhile, Turkish drone attacks in Syria are increasing

Mine Sevjin Alcicek, the woman responsible for the recent attack in Ankara, previously held a political position in the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

The woman responsible for the recent attack in Ankara, Turkey, has been identified as a former member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP).

Miner Sevjin Alcicek, who worked at the local HDP branch in Hakkari in 2015, was identified a day after an attack on the headquarters of a key defense company that killed five people. On Wednesday, two attackers – a man and a woman – arrived at the TUSAS headquarters on the outskirts of Ankara in a taxi that they had commandeered after killing its driver.

Armed with assault rifles, they set off explosives and opened fire. Two attackers were also killed and over 20 people were injured in the attack. Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya later named the attackers Mine Sevjin Alcicek and Ali Orek and identified them as members of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).

History of the PKK

The PKK is fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey in a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of people since the 1980s. Türkiye and its Western allies consider it a terrorist group. The group, formed in the late 1970s, attacked the Turkish government in 1984, calling for the creation of an independent Kurdish state in Turkey.

The conflict reached its peak in the mid-1990s, when thousands of villages were destroyed in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast and east. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds fled to cities elsewhere in the country. Kurds live in the mountainous regions of Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Armenia. There are approximately 30 million Kurds living in the Middle East, mainly in Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey.

Read more: : Why is Turkey, which is fighting armed Kurdish groups, blamed for the attack by the armed forces?

“Intensified dramatically.”

Following a deadly attack on a defense company near Ankara, Turkish forces “dramatically increased air and ground attacks in northern and eastern Syria since Thursday.” A Syria war observer said Friday that 27 civilians were killed in Turkish drone strikes following a 24-hour military escalation in Syria.

The monitor added that it documented 45 drone and four fighter jet attacks on infrastructure including waterworks, power plants and gas stations. Turkey launched airstrikes on Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria on Wednesday, blaming them for an attack that killed five people at an arms company near the Turkish capital. Another 22 people were injured in the attack, which the government said was “very likely” carried out by the outlawed PKK.

“Terrorist targets destroyed”

A few hours later, “an air operation was carried out against terrorist targets in the north of Iraq and Syria,” the Defense Ministry said in a statement. “A total of 32 terrorist targets were destroyed.” The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said in a statement on Thursday that Turkish airstrikes in northeast Syria killed 12 civilians and wounded 25 others.

“In addition to populated areas, Turkish combat aircraft and UAVs (drones) targeted bakeries, power plants, oil plants and checkpoints of the (Kurdish) Internal Security Forces,” the SDF added, also reporting Turkish shelling. The U.S.-backed SDF led the campaign that drove Islamic State jihadists from the last bits of Syrian territory in 2019.

Türkiye views the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which dominates the SDF, as an offshoot of the PKK. Turkish troops and allied rebel factions control swathes of northern Syria following successive cross-border offensives since 2016, most of which targeted the SDF.

(With agency participation)