ERBIL, Kurdistan Region of Iraq - The Kurdistan Workers Party's (PKK) armed wing People’s Defense Forces (HPG) on Friday claimed responsibility for an attack on the Turkish Aerospace Industries Inc. (TUSAS) headquarters in Ankara which killed at least five people two days ago. 

“The self-sacrificing action against the TUSAS campus in Ankara at around 15:30 on Wednesday, October 23 was carried out by an autonomous team of the Immortals Battalion,” the HPG said in a statement published by ANF, a media outlet linked to the PKK. 

The HPG identified the assailants as "comrades Asya Ali, Mine Sevjin Alcicek, and Rojger Helin."

The group said this attack was “planned a long time ago” and “successfully implemented.”

The PKK armed wing said they chose to target the Turkish state’s aerospace facility, TUSAS, because weapons that they produce "have killed thousands of our civilians, including children and women, in Kurdistan.”

The group claimed they "did not aim to target civilians in this action."

Soon after the attack on TUSAS, the Turkish government blamed the PKK, swiftly taking action by carrying out a massive number of airstrikes against alleged positions of the PKK in the mountainous areas of the Kurdistan Region and the Kurdish-controlled regions of north and east Syria. 

The Turkish defense ministry said in their retaliatory attacks, 32 “targets belonging to terrorists were neutralized.” 

Turkey carried out 49 drone attacks in north and east of Syria, killing at least 27 civilians including an 11-year-old girl, and wounding scores more, according to London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).

The SOHR reported that Turkey targeted "18 vital institutions and centers” in its strikes, including "water, power and gas stations, dispensaries, bread bakeries and checkpoints, particularly in Al-Hasakah countryside and Ain Al-Arab (Kobani)." 

The HPG said Turkey’s retaliatory attacks have not resulted in any casualties among their fighters. 

"Following this military action, airstrikes were carried out against some points of our guerrilla forces upon the order of the Turkish Ministry of Defense, supposedly to take revenge for this action, and our forces did not suffer any casualties or losses in these airstrikes,” the HPG said. 

Turkey accuses the US-backed Kurdish authorities of north and east Syria, notably the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing People’s Protection Units (YPG), of allegedly being the Syrian offshoot of the PKK.