A、willing to resume its armed campaign against the Turkish government. B、anxious to prevent a rebel leader from being sentenced

A militant Kurdish group has claimed responsibility for an explosion in Turkey’s commercial capital Istanbul that wounded 17 people. The group known as the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons reportedly carried out the attack to protest detention conditions of a Kurdish rebel leader Abdullah Ocalan. The blast took place in an Internet Cafe frequented by police in Istanbul’s Bayrampasa District. Police officers were reportedly among the injured. The Freedom Falcons has been blamed for a series of attacks against civilians in Turkey last year, including a blast on board a minibus in the Aegean coastal resort of Kusadasi. Two foreign tourists were killed in that attack. The Falcons are believed to be the guerrilla arm of the outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party. But it has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in the country’s predominantly Kurdish southeast region since 1984.