Less than six hours later, two gunmen opened fire on the same police station, setting off a gunfight in which two attackers and one police officer were killed. The bomb attack at the police station injured three policemen and seven civilians and caused a fire that collapsed part of the three-story building.
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There have been no reports of anyone getting hurt in the gun fire outside the US consulate.
A police officer who was wounded later died at the hospital, the news agency said. Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency, quoting unnamed police sources, said she has been identified as a member of a banned leftist group.
The attack also comes at a time when Turkey is taking a more active role against Islamic State militants.
The DHKP-C, which has claimed responsibility for assassinations and bombings since the 1970s, has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States.
But so far air strikes have overwhelmingly focused on the Kurdish militants, who have struck back by attacking the Turkish security forces and leaving a 2013 ceasefire in tatters.
Turkish forensic police officers work at the site of an explosion at a police station in Istanbul’s Sultanbeyli neighbourhood, early Monday, August 10, 2015.
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, the Dogan news agency said. A soldier was also killed when militants fired on a military helicopter nearby, the regional governor’s office said in a statement, adding that a “large scale operation” to catch the perpetrators is now underway.
The U.S. Consulate building in Istanbul was attacked on Monday.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for either of the attacks, but US diplomatic missions and police stations have been targeted by far-left groups in Turkey in the past.
The four police were killed by a blast on a road in Sirnak province. Police have detained a female suspect following the attack, broadcaster NTV said.
Turkey has been in a heightened state of alert since it launched what officials described as a “synchronised war on terror” last month. “The Consulate General remains closed to the public until further notice”.
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The violence has left a peace process with the PKK, begun by President Tayyip Erdogan in 2012, in tatters.
