A joint operation by the National Intelligence Organization (MIT) and Turkish police led to the capture of four members of the terrorist group Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C). The DHKP-C, which espouses a far-left, extremist ideology, was behind a string of attacks in Türkiye in the past.
Security sources said on Thursday that the DHKP-C suspects were captured in Istanbul on Feb. 25. They were planning bomb and gun attacks on several critical locations in Istanbul, sources also said.
Earlier this month, MIT and police collaborated on another operation against the Marxist-Leninist Communist Party (MLKP), another far-left terrorist group, rounding up the group’s members in operations across 22 provinces.
The DHKP-C is an offshoot of an extremist Marxist-Leninist movement that emerged in the 1970s and was formally established in the 1990s after splintering from a broader coalition of far-left organizations. The group has been responsible for a series of violent attacks over the decades, including the assassination of two politicians and several intelligence officials in 1980.
While the organization maintained a relatively low profile for years, it resurfaced with high-profile attacks in the past decade. In 2013, a DHKP-C militant carried out a suicide bombing at the U.S. Embassy compound in Ankara, killing a Turkish security guard. Two years later, DHKP-C members took a prosecutor hostage at an Istanbul courthouse and killed him during a standoff with police.
The group attempted a similar attack at the same courthouse in 2024, but police officers stationed outside the building thwarted the operation, killing two attackers before they could enter.
The DHKP-C has also claimed responsibility for nonlethal rocket attacks in 2013 targeting the headquarters of the ruling Justice and Development Party, the Turkish National Police and a Justice Ministry building in Ankara.
The group is designated as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the U.S. and the EU.
