Turkish police shoot Istanbul 'attackers'

Officers fatally wounded one of the said attackers outside the police headquarters in Istanbul's Aksaray neighborhood, with another of the perpetrators wounded, who is reported to have escaped during the clash.

At least one policeman was wounded, officials said. The AFP news agency reported that the individual who died had been a woman.

"An armed attack targeted our police department in Istanbul," Istanbul governor Sahin said. "A female terrorist, with a bomb and a gun, was killed in the clash. The other assailant fled and was injured and one policeman was lightly injured," he added.

The CNN-Turk and NTV channels reported that the injured male assailant had been subsequently arrested, although this was not officially confirmed.

Authorities said the two assailants in that incident were affiliated to a banned left-wing group, the outlawed Marxist Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C).

Death of prosecutor

Istanbul has been on a high state of alert since Monday, when two assailants took Istanbul prosecutor Mehmet Selim Kiraz hostage in his office. All three were killed in a shootout that ensued.

The prosecutor was said to have been abducted because he led an inquiry into the death of a boy who was hit by a police gas canister during anti-government protests in 2013. Nobody has been prosecuted in that case.

Hundreds participated in Kiraz' funeral on Wednesday, with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan cutting short a visit to Romania to pay his condolences to the family.

The hostage takers, believed to be from the DHKP-C, had made five demands, including a stipulation that the police responsible for the boy's death be held accountable in a "people's court."

The state-run Anadolu Agency reported on Wednesday that police in the southern city of Antalya had detained 19 people suspected of belonging to the DHKP-C. Ten other suspects were also held in the cities of Izmir and Eskisehir.

rc/jil (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)