Female suicide bomber strikes Istanbul police station, killing policeman and wounding another

ISTANBUL – A female suicide bomber blew herself up at a police station in Istanbul on Tuesday, killing one policeman and wounding another, according to Turkish authorities.

Istanbul governor Vasip Sahin said the woman entered the police station and reported a missing wallet before detonating a bomb. The attack occurred in the Sultan Ahmet district, a popular tourist destination.

It is the second attack on police in a week in Istanbul. On Thursday, police subdued a man after he threw grenades and fired a weapon at officers near the prime minister’s offices.

The leftist Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, said it carried out the Thursday attack. DHKP-C, which seeks a socialist state, is considered as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union.

Suicide attacks have been rare in Turkey since the government opened peace talks in 2012 with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, to end a thirty year insurgency. The DHKP-C has carried out sporadic attacks, including a suicide bombing on the U.S. embassy in 2013 that killed a security guard. The group was more active in the 1970s.

Sahin said that police are still trying to identify the woman who died in Tuesday’s attack.

“She spoke in English, entered (the police station) on the pretext that she had lost her wallet,” he said.