PKK-affiliated group claims suicide attack in Turkey's Bursa

A group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) on May 1 claimed a suicide bombing in Turkey's former Ottoman capital of Bursa last week, saying the female assailant had failed to reach her intended target.

The attack on the evening of April 27 near Bursa's famed 14th century Grand Mosque wounded thirteen people but caused no fatalities other than the female suicide bomber herself.

The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK) - a PKK affiliated group -- said in a statement on its website that one of its members had carried out the attack.

It said the bomber was a 23-year-old woman named Eser Cali and said the attack was aimed at "avenging" the Turkish government's current security operations in the southeastern provinces. 

But the statement added that the bomber had detonated her charge and been killed "due an accident before she had reached the target that was to be brought to account for the massacres against our people."   

It did not give details on the nature of the intended target but denied she was planning to attack the Grand Mosque.

The TAK has already claimed two attacks that killed dozens of people in the capital Ankara in February and March.

Commentators suggested at the time that the bomber had detonated her charge prematurely, sparing Bursa an attack which could have caused considerable loss of life.

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