June 25, 2010
Teyrebazen | DEPARTMENT OF STATE Public Notice 6057
The Kurdish Freedom Hawks[1], a separatist group, claimed
responsibility for a bomb attack on a military bus in Turkey’s largest
city of Istanbul that killed five people on Tuesday
DEPARTMENT OF STATE
[Public Notice 6057]
Determination Pursuant to Section 1(b) of Executive Order 13224
Relating to the Designation of the Teyrebazen Azadiya Kurdistan aka
TAK aka Kurdistan Freedom Hawks aka The Freedom Hawks of Kurdistan
Acting under the authority of and in accordance with section 1(b) of
Executive Order 13224 of September 23, 2001, as amended by Executive
Order 13268 of July 2, 2002, and Executive Order 13284 of January 23,
2003, I hereby determine that the organization known as Teyrebazen
Azadiya Kurdistan (aka TAK, aka Kurdistan Freedom Hawks, aka The
Freedom Hawks of Kurdistan) has committed, or poses a significant risk
of committing, acts of terrorism that threaten the security of U.S.
nationals or the national security, foreign policy, or economy of the
United States.
Consistent with the determination in section 10 of Executive Order
13224 that ”prior notice to persons determined to be subject to the
Order who might have a constitutional presence in the United States
would render ineffectual the blocking and other measures authorized in
the Order because of the ability to transfer funds instantaneously,”
I determine that no prior notice needs to
be provided to any person subject to this determination who might have
a constitutional presence in the United States, because to do so would
render ineffectual the measures authorized in the Order.
This notice shall be published in the Federal Register.
Condoleezza Rice,
Secretary of State, Department of State.
[FR Doc. E8-274 Filed 1-9-08; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 4710-10-P
[1]Teyrebazen Azadiya Kurdistan, or TAK, carried out its first attacks
in 2004. The early bombings were largely small and non-lethal, but
from 2005 onwards TAK launched more deadly attacks. In July that year
it bombed a minibus in the western Turkish holiday resort of Kusadasi,
killing at least five people including a British woman and an Irish
woman.
In January 2008 the United States said it had designated the TAK as a
terrorist group, subjecting it to U.S. financial sanctions.
Although little is known about the TAK, the group is believed to have
links with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the main separatist
group operating in mainly Kurdish southeast Turkey. The PKK, founded
by Abdullah Ocalan in 1974, had taken up arms against Turkey in 1984
with the aim of creating an ethnic homeland in the southeast. Nearly
40,000 people have been killed in the resulting conflict since then.
The TAK has deliberately attacked Turkish and foreign civilians. The
geographical spread of TAK attacks also suggests that its members live
in Kurdish migrant communities in western Turkey and in Istanbul,
rather than in the Kurdish heartlands of the southeast that were the
focus of PKK actions.
AIMS: It claims to oppose Turkey’s “false policies on the Kurdish
issue”, and to be seeking revenge for the deaths of Kurds at the hands
of the Turkish government.
SOME ATTACKS:
Six people were wounded, one seriously, after a bomb exploded at a
supermarket in Istanbul in February 2006. The TAK claimed
responsibility for the blast and pledged more attacks.
Three people were killed and 87 injured in a blast in Antalya,
southern Turkey in August 2006. The TAK claimed responsibility.
In August 2008 the group claimed responsibility for bomb attacks in
the Turkish coastal cities of Mersin and Izmir. A suspected suicide
bomber detonated a bomb in his car near Mersin, killing himself and
wounding 12 police officers. Two days later 16 people were wounded,
including eight police and three soldiers, in a car bomb which ripped
through a minibus in Izmir.
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