A Turkey-based militant group has claimed responsibility for a car bombing in the capital Ankara that killed 28 people, mostly soldiers, on Wednesday.    

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), in a statement posted on its website, said it carried out the attack in response to the policies of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

“This act was conducted to avenge the massacre of defenseless, injured civilians,” the group said, threatening further attacks.

The bomber, it said, was a 26-year-old Turkish national born in the eastern city of Van. It identified him Abdulbaki Sonmez who carried out the bombing on a Turkish military convoy in Ankara.

The TAK was once linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party but it says its relationship with PKK militants has been severed.

Erdogan has said he had "no doubt" that Syrian Kurdish groups fighting Takfiris carried out the bombing. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said a Syrian national with links to the People’s Protection Units (YPG) was behind the attack.

 

Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu (3rd L) prays among others behind a flag-draped coffin of a car bombing victim in Ankara, Feb. 19, 2016. (Photo by Reuters)Davutoglu has also accused the Syrian government of being directly responsible for the bombing in Ankara.

The leader of the YPG denied that the group's armed YPG wing was behind the attack, saying Ankara was making the accusation in order to escalate its attacks in Syria.

Turkey is supporting militants fighting to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Ankara has been shelling YPG positions in northern Syria over the last few days in an attempt to stop Kurdish forces from reaching the border with Turkey.

On Thursday, Davutoglu said Turkish forces would continue to shell Kurdish positions on Syrian soil as its accusations against Syrian Kurds and the government in Damascus raised fears of an escalation.

 

Turkish army tanks, positioned near the border with Syria, shoot into reported Kurdish targets in Syrian territory, February 15, 2016. (Photo by AFP)Turkey regards the YPG and PYD as an ally of the PKK, which has been fighting for an autonomous Kurdish region inside Turkey since the 1980s.

The Turkish army has been carrying out a military campaign in several regions with a majority Kurdish population in the past few months. A PKK leader signaled that the Ankara bombing was a response to "massacres" in Turkey's Kurdish-populated regions.

At least 28 people lost their lives when a car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses in Ankara on Wednesday. Twenty-seven of those killed were members of the military.

Hours after the bombing, Turkish warplanes carried out airstrikes against PKK positions in the Haftanin area of Dohuk Province in Iraq’s semi-autonomous Kurdistan region, killing 60-70 militants, including senior PKK figures, Davutoglu said.

By Press TV