At least 235 people were detained Dec. 12 in raids across Turkey over alleged ties to Kurdish militant groups, as Turkish leaders vowed to avenge the deaths of some 44 people killed in twin explosions that rocked the heart of Istanbul Dec. 10.

Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said those responsible for the blasts, claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons (TAK), the urban terror offshoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), would be “wiped from this geography.” Turkish warplanes bombed PKK targets in Kurdish-controlled northern Iraq, as is customary after Kurdish-linked attacks.

Most of the Istanbul victims were riot police massed outside the Besiktas soccer stadium during a match. The newly revamped stadium overlooks Dolmabahce Palace, one of the city’s main tourist attractions and where the president receives foreign dignitaries. The policemen and at least four civilians were killed when a bomb-laden vehicle exploded near them. The second blast occurred 45 seconds later, when a suicide bomber detonated at Macka Park, which borders the city’s upscale Macka and Tesvikiye neighborhoods.

The TAK said it had carried out the attack in retaliation for the Turkish army’s continued operations in the mainly Kurdish southeast, where urban battles have left a string of towns almost in ruins, and to protest the imprisonment of PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan.