ISTANBUL, Nov 20: Thursday’s two suicide car bomb blasts in Istanbul were the latest in a long line of attacks in the past two decades of Turkey’s turbulent political history.

Following is a list of the worst attacks since 1982:

Aug 7, 1982: A bomb at Ankara airport, followed by a gun battle, leaves 11 dead and 63 injured. The attack is claimed by ASALA, the Armenian Secret Army for the Liberation of Armenia.

June 16, 1983: Three dead and 27 injured in a grenade and rifle attack on the bazaar in Istanbul, claimed by ASALA.

July 24, 1985: The first secretary of the Jordnian embassy, Ziad Sati, is shot dead in his car in Ankara in an attack blamed on the dissident Palestinian movement led by Abu Nidal and supported by Syria.

Sept 6, 1986: A suicide bomb, claimed by Islamic Jihad, kills 22 and the two bombers at the Neve Shalom synagogue in Istanbul.

Oct 25, 1988: The second secretary of the Saudi Arabian embassy is shot dead near his home in Ankara. Claimed by a hitherto unknown pro-Iranian fundamentalist organisation.

Dec 25, 1991: Explosives and firebombs are hurled at a department store in the European sector of Istanbul, killing 17 and injuring 23. Blamed on the PKK.

March 7, 1992: Two fundamentalist groups claim responsibility for the car bomb attack which kills an Israeli diplomat and injures two others.

March 12, 1995: An attack against the moderate Muslim community in Istanbul kills three and leaves some 15 injured, but 28 die in subsequent clashes between demonstrators and police.

Sept 17, 1995: A bomb explosion in a cafe in the western city of Izmir, atrributed to the PKK, kills five and injures 24.

March 5, 1999: A car bomb attack aimed at the provincial governor in the central town of Cankiri leaves three dead and 10 injured. Claimed by a Maoist group.

March 13, 1999: Two dead and six injured in a firebomb attack on a shopping mall in the Asian Goztepe sector of Istanbul. Claimed by the PKK.

July 1, 1999: A machine gun attack, claimed by the PKK, on a cafe in Elazig, in the east of the country, kills six.

- A wave of attacks in 1999 followed the death sentence passed on PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, but with the abolition of the death penalty in Turkey in 2002, his term is commuted to life imprisonment.

Jan 24, 2001: The chief of police of the south-eastern Diyarbakir province and five of his men are shot dead.

Nov 15, 2003: Two suicide car bomb attacks aimed at the Neve Shalom and Beth Israel synagogues in Istanbul which kill 25 and injure more than 300 are jointly claimed by the the Islamic Front of Raiders of the Great Orient (IBDA-C) and al-Qaeda. —AFP