By Sertac Bulur / Fatih Cakmak
ANKARA
The terrorist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front's (DHKP-C) latest attack in Istanbul is yet another example of its long list of failures in the country.
Its latest attack Thursday on police officers left two female assailants associated with the group “neutralized”. The gun-and-grenade attack in Istanbul's Bayrampasa district also injured two police officers.
The assailants, identified as Cigdem Yaksi and Berna Yilmaz, were killed in a follow-up operation in a building where they had taken refuge.
The DHKP-C, which has been listed as a terrorist organization also by the U.S. and the EU, has carried out a number of attacks in Turkey since its foundation in 1994.
Among its attacks are an armed attack on the U.S. Consulate General in Istanbul in August 2015, and a suicide bombing on the U.S. embassy in the Turkish capital Ankara in February 2013, killing a security guard named Mustafa Akarsu.
In February 1991, the terrorist organization -which was then a "Revolutionary Left" (Devrimci Sol) movement- also killed three U.S. citizens working at the Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.
A year later, five Turkish police officers were killed in Istanbul's Sisli district in an armed attack.
DHKP-C terrorists killed businessman Ozdemir Sabanci, together with Toyota General Manager Haluk Gorgun, and his secretary Nilgun Hasefe in an attack at the headquarters of Sabanci Holding in 1996.
In March 2013, militants conducted attacks on the ruling Justice and Development (AK) Party headquarters and the Turkish Justice Ministry.
They carried out a gun attack in January 2015 on a security post near Istanbul's Dolmabahce Palace - a popular tourist attraction. A police officer also got injured in the attack.
In March the same year, Prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz, who was investigating the death of a teenager Berkin Elvan, was shot in the head after being taken hostage in Istanbul's Caglayan court.
Istanbul Police Department was attacked with hand grenades and Kalashnikovs in April 2015, while party buildings of People's Democratic Party (HDP) were attacked with bombs in southern Adana and Mersin provinces in May 2015.
The organization also claimed responsibility for two assassinations, including that of the right wing politician Gun Sazak in May 1980, and Nihat Erim - one of the prime ministers of Turkey - in July 1980.
With all such terror attacks, the organization, as it says, has an ultimate aim of "destroying the existing constitutional order in Turkey."
