Istanbul--Istanbul has in the last two days been rocked by two deadly shoot-outs blamed on an outlawed ultra-left group, with the Turkish security forces detaining dozens of its suspected members.
The Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), known until the mid 1990s as Devrimci Sol (Revolutionary Left), is a deeply secretive group which goes quiet for periods before re-emerging to stage attacks.
With attention focused on peace talks with Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) Kurdish separatists and the risk of attacks by Islamic State (IS) jihadists, the threat posed by the DHKP-C had receded into the background.
But after a deadly hostage-taking and an attempted attack on an Istanbul police headquarters, the group has again shown it remains a force.
- Who are the DHKP-C? -
The group was founded in the late 1970s as Devrimci Sol (or Dev Sol) by Marxist militant Dursun Karatas. He fled a jail sentence in 1989 and died in 2008 in Amsterdam and thousands of supporters turned out in Istanbul for his funeral when his body was repatriated.
Following infighting, the group changed its name to the DHKP-C. It has been outlawed as a terrorist group not only by Turkey but also the United States and European Union.
"While the PKK, Al-Qaeda have drawn much public attention for many years, as well as IS more recently, Turkey's security services have been confronted with violent actions by DHKP-C for more than twenty years, often targeting foreign interests," Marc Pierini, visiting scholar at the Carnegie Europe Center told AFP.
AFP
