Turkey was dizzy with the twin bombings that rocked the city center of Istanbul on Dec. 11 and took 45 lives. Before recovering from that trauma, the country was shaken again in less than a week with another terror attack. This time the target was off-duty soldiers in the central Anatolian province of Kayseri. Fourteen people were killed and some 55 wounded.

Although fingers were pointed at the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), the outlawed group did not formally claim responsibility for the attacks. However, the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), widely seen as an offshoot of the PKK, did claim responsibility.

It is not difficult to assume from the remarks of Murat Karayilan, the PKK’s military head, that the Kurdish insurgent organization at least endorses both bombings. Karayilan blamed Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) for the attacks, accusing it of resuming the fight between Turkish government forces and Kurdish militants. “The Commando Brigade in Kayseri is the one that committed most of the massacres in Kurdistan … that tortured the Kurdish people in Hakkari and Cizre!” Karayilan told the pro-Kurdish Firat news agency in an apparent endorsement of the attacks.

In the meantime, an increasingly demoralized society was shaken by a third terror attack, where the Russian ambassador to Ankara was assassinated. A young policeman who was a member of a rapid deployment unit — which is supposed to provide security to officials and foreign diplomats — shot Andrei Karlov to death. Karlov is the first Russian ambassador to be killed in a NATO-member country.