A suicide bomber detonated an explosive device near the Turkish interior ministry building in Ankara on Sunday, while a second assailant was killed in a shootout with police, according to Turkey’s interior ministry.
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“Two terrorists arrived in a light military vehicle at around 9:30 am (0630 GMT), in front of the entrance gate of the General Directorate of Security of our ministry of the interior, and carried out a bomb attack,” Turkey’s interior ministry said.
Two police officers were slightly injured during the attack near the ministry of interior affairs, Minister Ali Yerlikaya said on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
Yerlikaya said the assailants arrived at the scene inside a light commercial vehicle.
BREAKING — An explosion and gun fire heard in Turkey’s capital Ankara around 9am in the morning, near the parliament and the ministries
Turkish Parliament opens today after summer recess
— Ragıp Soylu (@ragipsoylu) October 1, 2023
Reporting from Ankara, FRANCE 24’s Jasper Mortimer said the two militants drove a small, grey commercial van up to the security offices of the interior ministry, which are around 300 metres from the main parliament building.
“The militants got out of the van, they fired at the police guarding the ministry. One militant detonated his suicide vest, the other militant was shot dead,” said Mortimer.
Ankara’s chief prosecutor launched an investigation into what it also called a terrorist attack.
Authorities did not identify any specific militant group.
Turkish media earlier reported that an explosion and gunfire was heard near the parliament and ministerial buildings in the heart of Ankara on Sunday morning.
Attack timed for maximum impact
The targeted district is home to several other ministries and the Turkish parliament, which was due to reopen today with an address from President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, according to Turkish media.
Referring to the timing of Sunday’s attack, Mortimer noted that, “whoever did this wanted to make absolutely sure that their cause was on the national agenda”.
There was no immediate information on the assailants. Kurdish and far-left militant groups as well as the Islamic State (IS) group have carried out deadly attacks throughout the country in the past.
The bombing, the first to hit Ankara in a number of years, comes almost a year after six people were killed and 81 wounded in an explosion in a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul on November 13, 2022.
“The state blamed the attack on the PKK, the Kurdish militant organisation,” for the Istanbul attack, said Mortimer. “But the PKK denied responsibility and many experts suspected that this was actually the wordk of the IS group.”
Television footage showed bomb squads working near a parked vehicle in the area which is located near the Turkish Grand National Assembly and other government buildings. Police cordoned off access to the city center.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP, and Reuters)
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