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Radical Kurdish group claims twin blasts in southern Turkey

ANKARA, Aug 5, 2006 (AFP) - A radical Kurdish group claimed responsibility Saturday for two bomb blasts that left 17 people injured in southern Turkey the day before.

In a statement posted on its web site, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK) said Friday's attacks outside a bank in the city of Adana were a reprisal "for the fascist treatment of Chairman Apo and our people."

Apo is the nickname of Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed leader of the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has fought for self-rule in the mainly Kurdish southeast since 1984.

"Our actions will become more violent with every passing day," TAK threatened.

The Oyakbank branch, near which the bombs exploded, was targeted because it was affiliated to the army, it said.

Oyakbank is owned by the Turkish military's pension fund.

The first explosion occurred near a cash point of Oyakbank and was followed six minutes later by a second blast at a nearby construction site.

Seventeen people, including eight policemen and two cadets from the local police academy, were injured.

Turkish officials say TAK is a front for PKK attacks on civilian targets; the PKK claims TAK is a splinter group over which it has no control.

TAK has claimed 10 other bomb attacks in urban centers across Turkey this year, in which six people were killed and some 120 others injured.

The deadliest of them was at the Mediterranean resort town of Manavgat, in which three foreign tourists and a Turk perished.

The Kurdish conflict in Turkey has claimed more than 37,000 lives since the PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara and much of the international community, took up arms in 1984.