People look at a police station which was damaged during an attack in Istanbul, Turkey August 10, 2015.
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Broadcaster CNN Turk said two gunmen and a senior officer from the police bomb squad, who rushed to the scene, were killed in a firefight that continued into Monday morning in the district on the Asian side of the Bosphorus waterway dividing Istanbul.
Separately, two assailants opened fire at the U.S. consulate compound in the city.
The state-run Anatolia news agency said over the weekend that so far 390 “terrorists” have been killed in the air campaign in Turkey and northern Iraq with 400 wounded. Four police were also killed in Sirnak province when their armored vehicle was attacked with a roadside bomb, the Dogan news agency reported.
No one else was injured in the onslaught. There was no immediate responsibility claim for that attack.
The attack came hours after an overnight bomb attack at a police station in Istanbul injured 10 people, including seven police officers, and caused a fire that collapsed part of the three-story building. Unknown assailants later fired on police inspecting the scene of the explosion, sparking another gunfight with police that killed a member of the police inspection team and two assailants. There has been a recent sharp spike in violence between Turkey’s security forces and rebels of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, as Turkey has attacked PKK targets in Iraq in tandem with airstrikes against Islamic State militants in Syria. Turkey is also taking a more active role against ISIL militants.
Last month Ankara conducted aerial strikes against Isis positions in Syria.
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.
A far-left group that killed a Turkish security guard in a 2013 suicide bombing of the U.S. embassy in Ankara claimed it was involved in Monday’s attack.
The DHKP-C are a far-left militant organisation which since the 1970s has carried out numerous attacks against what it sees as the “imperialist” and “fascist” Turkish state.
The U.S. Embassy in Ankara did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
The consulate said in a tweet that it was closed until further notice.
Ahmet Akcay, a resident who witnessed the attack, told Reuters that one of the women fired four or five rounds, aiming at security officials and consulate officers.
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On Monday, suspected PKK fighters in Turkey’s southeastern Sirnak province shot at a military helicopter, killing one and wounding another.
