Kurdistan Freedom Falcons

Kurdistan Freedom Falcons
Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan Participant in the Kurdish–Turkish conflict
Flag of the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK)
Active	29 July 2004 (2004-07-29) – present
Ideology	Kurdish nationalism Separatism
Headquarters	Unknown
Area of operations	Turkey, Iraq, Syria, Iran
Strength	A few dozen active members (2006)
Split from	PKK (TAK claim)
Opponents	Turkey
Battles and wars	Kurdish–Turkish conflict

The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (Kurdish: Teyrêbazên Azadiya Kurdistan, TAK‎, Turkish: Kürdistan Özgürlük Şahinleri) also known as the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks and the Kurdistan Liberation Hawks, is a Kurdish nationalist militant group in Turkey seeking an independent Kurdish state in eastern and southeastern Turkey. The group also opposes the Turkish government’s policies towards its ethnic Kurdish citizens.

The group presents itself as a break-away faction of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) in open dissent with the PKK's readiness to compromise with the Turkish state. Analysts and experts disagree on whether or not the two groups are in reality still linked.

The group first appeared in August 2004, just weeks after the PKK called off the 1999 truce, assuming responsibility for two hotel bombings in Istanbul which claimed two victims. Since then, TAK has followed a strategy of escalation, committing numerous violent bomb attacks throughout Turkey, with a focus on western and central Turkey, including some tourist areas in Istanbul, Ankara, and southern Mediterranean resorts. TAK also claimed responsibility for the February 2016 Ankara bombing, which killed at least 28 people, the March 2016 Ankara bombing in the same city that killed another 37 people, and the December 2016 Istanbul bombings which killed 47 people.

After several decades of oppressive measures by the Turkish government towards the ethnic Kurdish population of Turkey, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) was formed in 1978 in an aim to establish equal rights and self-determination for the Kurds in Turkey, who comprise between 18% and 25% of the population. Since 1984, however, an armed conflict began between the PKK and the Turkish security forces resulting in the deaths of around 7,000 Turkish security personnel and over 30,000 Kurds. Throughout the conflict, the European Court of Human Rights has condemned Turkey for thousands of human rights abuses. The judgments are related to executions of Kurdish civilians, torturing, forced displacements, destroyed villages, arbitrary arrests, murdered and disappeared Kurdish journalists. As a result of a brief cease-fire in 2004, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons was formed, a group that presents itself as a break-away faction of the PKK and is in open dissent with the PKK's readiness to compromise with the Turkish state. The TAK opposes, through militant action, the treatment of Kurds in Turkey and seeks retaliation for those Kurds who were killed at the hands of the Turkish government.