Helicopters, armoured vehicles and hundreds of police officers were involved in a violent stand-off with a suspected extremist in central Istanbul this morning that left three people dead.

A heavily armed militant, thought to have links to the Kurdish separatist PKK group, resisted a police raid for five hours in an apartment east of the Bosphorous river.

The man was eventually killed by police marksmen, but not before he had shot eight officers, a camera man and an onlooker. One of the officers and the bystander died of their injuries.

Terrified neighbours peered from their windows as anti-terrorism police ducked and sheltered behind armoured vehicles during the raid that began at dawn. Police fired several tear gas canisters setting a fire that left smoke pouring from the building.

The raid was part of a crackdown on Kurdish and radical Islamic groups. The government said police had rounded up more than 40 suspects in 60 overnight raids, but there were no other clashes. A spokesman said that 12 of the suspects, including the militant gunman, belonged to a pro-Kurdish group called the Revolutionary Headquarters.

The clash began with a raid on an apartment building in the Bostanci district of Istanbul. The militant holed-up inside responded by throwing two explosive devices that wounded several officers, said Muammer Guler, the governor of Istanbul.

“They were planning to stage sensational armed attacks soon,” Mr Guler said. “We have seized lots of weapons, bombs and booby traps.”

The militant involved in the shootout had a police radio and identified himself as a soldier from the Revolutionary Headquarters during a radio conversation with the police, which was broadcast on a Turkish television channel called HaberTurk.

“I am a fighter and will fight until the end,” the militant said. “I will probably be killed, but our struggle against fascism, terrorism will go on as it did in the past.”

The gunman talked about the “brotherhood of people,” a term used by extremist groups to describe their solidarity with Kurds.

Besir Atalay, the Interior Minister, identified the militant as Orhan Yilmazkaya, one of three top members of the Revolutionary Headquarters.

“It is a leftist group which is also linked to the separatist group,” Mr Atalay said in reference to the rebel Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK.

Mr Atalay said the group had carried out attacks on military targets and the ruling Justice and Development Party office in Istanbul in the past.

The militant had a large amount of ammunition, including booby traps, and was able to hold off hundreds of officers for more than five hours, Mr Guler said. The gunman fired from behind a curtain of a window that was riddled with bullet holes. One shot from the safe house grazed the head of a TV camera man and hit an onlooker, killing him.

“I was in a state of shock, I did not understand what was going on,” said Ilhan Kandaz, NTV camera man , who was slightly wounded.

The intensity of the clash scared residents as police brought in more reinforcements and armored vehicles, ambulances, fire trucks and helicopters.

The raids came days before May Day, when police are on alert for clashes. Last week, Turkey declared May Day a public holiday, bowing to pressure from labour unions. But authorities refused to grant permission for festivities to be held at Istanbul’s Taksim Square. The site is symbolic because dozens of people were killed there in 1977 when gunmen opened fire, causing a stampede.

May Day had not been a public holiday in Turkey since a 1980 military coup, whose leaders regarded the festivities as a rallying point for left-wing activism.

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