Tag: Ankara embassy bombing

  • US warns citizens against visiting Turkey missions after blast

    US warns citizens against visiting Turkey missions after blast

    Istanbul:The US consulate in Istanbul warned its citizens against visiting its missions in Turkey until further notice after a suicide bomber killed himself and one other person in an attack on its embassy in Ankara.

    “The Department of State advises US citizens traveling or residing in
    Turkey to be alert to the potential for violence, to avoid those areas where disturbances have occurred and to avoid demonstrations and large gatherings,” the consulate statement added.

    The attacker detonated explosives strapped to his body after entering an embassy gatehouse. .

    Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan said the bomber was a member of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), a far-left group which is virulently anti-US and anti-NATO and is listed as a terrorist organisation by Washington.

    The White House said the suicide attack was an “act of terror” but that the motivation was unclear. U.S. officials said the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities.

    Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past. There was no claim of responsibility.

    “The suicide bomber was ripped apart and one or two citizens from the special security team passed away,” said Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan.

    “This event shows that we need to fight together everywhere in the world against these terrorist elements,” he said.

    In New York, the UN Security Council strongly condemned the attack as a heinous act.

    Turkish media reports identified the bomber as DHKP-C member Ecevit Sanli, who was involved in attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul in 1997.

    KEY ALLY

    Turkey is a key USally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism and has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the conflict in neighboring Syria.

    Around 400 U.S. soldiers have arrived in Turkey over the past few weeks to operate Patriot anti-missile batteries meant to defend against any spillover of Syria’s civil war, part of a NATO deployment due to be fully operational in the coming days.

    An embassy security guard arrives at the Gate 2 of the US embassy just minutes after a suicide bomber has detonated an explosive device at the entrance of the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara. AP

    The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War and launched rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department.

    Deemed a terrorist organisation by both the United States and Turkey, the DHKP-C has been blamed for suicide attacks in the past, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul’s central Taksim Square.

    The group, formed in 1978, has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months.

    The attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group.

    “HUGE EXPLOSION”

    U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone emerged through the main gate of the embassy shortly after the explosion to address reporters, flanked by a security detail as a Turkish police helicopter hovered overhead.

    “We’re very sad of course that we lost one of our Turkish guards at the gate,” Ricciardone said, describing the victim as a “hero” and thanking Turkish authorities for a prompt response.

    U.S. State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland condemned the attack on the checkpoint on the perimeter of the embassy and said several U.S. and Turkish staff were injured by debris.

    “The level of security protection at our facility in Ankara ensured that there were not significantly more deaths and injuries than there could have been,” she told reporters.

    It was the second attack on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya.

    The attack in Benghazi, blamed on al Qaeda-affiliated militants, sparked a political furore in Washington over accusations that U.S. missions were not adequately safeguarded.

    A well-known Turkish journalist, Didem Tuncay, who was on her way in to the embassy to meet Ricciardone when the attack took place, was in a critical condition in hospital.

    “It was a huge explosion. I was sitting in my shop when it happened. I saw what looked like a body part on the ground,” said travel agent Kamiyar Barnos, whose shop window was shattered around 100 meters away from the blast.

    CALL FOR VIGILANCE

    The U.S. consulate in Istanbul warned its citizens to be vigilant and to avoid large gatherings, while the British mission in Istanbul called on British businesses to tighten security after what it called a “suspected terrorist attack”.

    In 2008, Turkish gunmen with suspected links to al Qaeda, opened fire on the U.S. consulate in Istanbul, killing three Turkish policemen. The gunmen died in the subsequent firefight.

    The most serious bombings in Turkey occurred in November 2003, when car bombs shattered two synagogues, killing 30 people and wounding 146. Part of the HSBC Bank headquarters was destroyed and the British consulate was damaged in two more explosions that killed 32 people less than a week later. Authorities said those attacks bore the hallmarks of al Qaeda.

    Reuters

  • Making sense of the Ankara embassy bombing from Istanbul

    Making sense of the Ankara embassy bombing from Istanbul

    Emergency personnel are seen on Friday in front of a side entrance to the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital.

    ISTANBUL — “Have you heard the news?” my editor at the local Turkish newspaper asked. Lazily clicking through various media outlets’ homepages as I shouldered the phone to my ear, I assumed he was referring to the still-missing New Yorker in Istanbul.

    “Yeah, but the investigator hasn’t —”

    “No, not Sierra,” he interrupted. “The U.S. Embassy was bombed this morning.”

    I immediately jumped on Twitter, where I watched and retweeted as developments unfolded. First, news of a blast near the embassy in Ankara. Then, photos of the damaged front entrance. After that came 140-character blurbs reporting several injuries, a suicide bomber (or was it a package?) and one, no, two deaths.

    The distance between Ankara and Istanbul, where I live, is more than 200 miles. But I felt a world away as I drank my latte, watched two boys rough-house in the street and wrapped up another story on the investigation into Sarai Sierra’s mystifying disappearance.

    Meanwhile, my American cellphone has not stopped buzzing since 3:30 p.m. I’ve received dozens of Facebook messages and e-mails from concerned family members and friends back home. As I rushed to meet my daily deadline, I put my phone on silent.

    After filing, I cautiously opened my inbox. My heart sank — three messages from mom. I knew what they said before I read them.

    “IMPORTANT!!” shouted the first subject line. I took a deep breath before clicking it open. As I read the message interspersed with exclamation points and phrases in all caps, I could hear her frightened voice and see her furrowed brow.

    Let me add an important aside: Mom’s been trying to get me to come home since I moved here two years ago. The oldest of three daughters, I was the first in my immediate family to go to college and the first to travel abroad. She had no idea I was going to end up living in Turkey when I hugged her goodbye in January 2011. Neither did I.

    She and my sisters traveled to Istanbul this past summer and, as I did when I first stepped off the plane, fell in love with the city and its storied history, generous people and distinct cuisine. But that hasn’t stopped my mom (and many of my family members, for that matter) from sending frantic messages every time a protest occurs or bomb detonates, not just in Turkey but anywhere in the region.

    As much as I hate to admit it, she’s got a point.

    According to the Pew Research Center’s 2012 Global Attitudes Project, only 15 percent of Turks have a favorable opinion of the United States. Conversely, 72 percent view the United States unfavorably.

    In the past, I’ve been able to alleviate my chronically worried mother’s fears about my safety by pointing out that none of our governmental buildings had been targeted recently, as has happened in the Arab Spring countries. Perhaps, in retrospect, that wasn’t the greatest example I could have given.

    After all, this isn’t the first time a U.S. diplomatic mission has been attacked in Turkey.

    In 2008, six people were killed when gunmen attacked Turkish police guarding the entrance to the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul. Only five years before that, an al-Qaeda-linked gang of Turks killed 58 people in various suicide truck bombings around Istanbul.

    As my mom reminds me every day, Turkey also is in a geopolitical hot spot.

    Think of what’s happened in the past two years alone — social and political upheaval has swept the Middle East and North Africa; Syria is riddled with conflict; already tense relations between the United States and Iran have deteriorated; four people were killed in an attack on an American diplomatic post in Benghazi, Libya, etc.

    But do I worry about my safety in Istanbul? Honestly, other than frequent harassment, no. Perhaps it sounds naïve, but those concerns don’t match my reality here. It hasn’t affected my daily life.

    And it hasn’t, at least until now, stopped others from visiting Istanbul, consistently ranked among the world’s most popular tourist destinations.

    I pumped out a quick message, knowing my mother’s anxiety would not subside until she heard from me. “Hey mom, I’m fine. Promise I’m being safe. Just sitting in a café, writing.”

    Less than a minute later, my inbox chirped. “OK, love you.”

    via Making sense of the Ankara embassy bombing from Istanbul.