PKK Offshoot Claims Responsibility for Ankara Bombing

A Kurdish militant group has claimed it was behind the attack in Turkey's capital Ankara which killed 37 people last week.

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons have said on their website (in Kurdish, quoted by the BBC and Reuters) they were targeting security forces and and not intending to kill civilians, adding further casualties would be "inevitable".

They have added the bloodbath was planned as a revenge for Turkish military operations in the city of Cizre in southeastern Turkey.

TAK name one of the perpetrators, a woman who died during the attack, as 24-year-old Seher Doga Jiyan.   

The group is a splinter faction of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), but unlike the latter group is unwilling to work for a compromise with the Turkish state which it calls "fascist".

In February, TAK claimed to have been behind the previous attack in Ankara in which most of the victims were military personnel.

Separately, an "unconfirmed warning" prompted the German Foreign Ministry to close down the country's embassy in fear of a possible terror attack.

Deutsche Schule, a German school in Istanbul, and Berlin's consulate in the city were also closed for a day.