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Police detain 90 in connection to courthouse attack in İstanbul

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Turkish police have detained 90 people in connection to a terrorist attack in front of İstanbul’s main courthouse on Tuesday in which three people, including the two gunmen, were killed, the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.

The attack took place in front of the İstanbul Courthouse in Çağlayan. Police officers fatally shot two assailants, who opened fire on a police checkpoint, while a bystander, identified as Dilfıraz Karataş, who was also critically injured in the attack, succumbed to her injuries at a hospital. Karataş, a mother of two, was laid to rest following prayers in İstanbul on Wednesday.

Gülfiraz Karataş

Five other people, including three police officers, were also injured in the attack, according to a statement from Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya on Tuesday.

Yerlikaya also said the assailants, one man and one woman, were militants of the far-left Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C).

The minister said later on Tuesday that 40 suspects were detained in police raids in 25 locations following the attack. Anadolu said the number of detainees rose to 90 on Wednesday.

The investigation into the incident is being conducted by the İstanbul Chief Public Prosecutor’s Office.

Turkey had begun to emerge from a violent spell that started a decade ago, when it was hit by repeated bombings and other attacks linked to Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters and Kurdish militants.

Although those attacks have largely died down, both İstanbul and the capital, Ankara, remain on high alert.

Last month, one man was shot dead by two gunmen who opened fire inside a Catholic church in İstanbul.

The attack was claimed by ISIL militants.

In October a pair of assailants injured two policemen in an attack in the government district in Ankara that was claimed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community.

Turkey responded by stepping up airstrikes against Kurdish targets in Syria and Iraq.

In one of its highest-profile attacks, the DHKP-C in 2013 staged a suicide bombing of the US Embassy in Ankara, killing a Turkish security guard.

The group, which is recognized as a terrorist organization by Washington, has been fighting US influence in the Middle East and across the world.

In 2014 Washington issued a $3 million reward for the capture of the group’s leaders.

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