Suicide bomber kills guard at U.S. Embassy in Turkey

Officials gather at a checkpoint entry to the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Friday just after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device.
Officials gather at a checkpoint entry to the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Friday just after a suicide bomber detonated an explosive device.

— In the second deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in five months, a suicide bomber struck the American Embassy in Ankara on Friday, killing a Turkish security guard in what the White House described as a terrorist attack.

Washington immediately warned Americans to stay away from all U.S. diplomatic facilities in Turkey and to be wary in large crowds.

Turkish officials said the bombing was linked to leftist domestic militants.

The attack drew condemnation from Turkey, the United States, Britain and other nations, and officials from both Turkey and the United States pledged to work together to fight terrorism.

“We strongly condemn what was a suicide attack against our embassy in Ankara, which took place at the embassy’s outer security perimeter,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

“A suicide bombing on the perimeter of an embassy is by definition an act of terror,” he said. “It is a terrorist attack.”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said police believe that the bomber was connected to a domestic leftist-militant group. Carney, however, said the motive for the attack and who was behind it were not known.

A Turkish TV journalist was seriously wounded in the 1:15 p.m. blast in the Turkish capital, and two other guards had lesser wounds, officials said.

The state-run Anadolu Agency identified the bomber as Ecevit Sanli. It said the 40-year-old Turkish man was a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, which has claimed responsibility for assassinations and bombings since the 1970s.

The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States but had been relatively quiet in recent years.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her farewell speech to State Department staff members moments after she formally resigned as secretary of state, said, “We were attacked and lost one of our foreign service nationals.”

She said she spoke with U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone, “our team there and my Turkish counterpart. I told them how much we valued their commitment and their sacrifice.”

John Kerry, the incoming secretary of state, also was briefed.

The U.S. Embassy building in Ankara is heavily protected and is near several other embassies, including those of Germany and France.

U.S. diplomatic facilities in Turkey have been targeted previously by terrorists. In 2008, an attack blamed on al-Qaida-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead.

On Sept. 11, 2012, terrorists attacked a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The attackers in Libya were suspected to have ties to Islamist extremists, and one is in custody in Egypt.

Friday’s bombing occurred at a security checkpoint at the side entrance to the U.S. Embassy, which is used by staff members.

State Department spokesman Victoria Nuland said a man detonated a suicide vest at the checkpoint on the outer perimeter of the embassy compound.

The guard who was killed was standing outside the checkpoint, while the two wounded guards “were standing in a more protected area,” Interior Minister Muammer Guler said.

The two wounded guards were treated at the scene and did not require hospital treatment, he said.

“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,” Nuland told reporters in Washington.

While praising its security and the response of Turkish authorities, Nuland noted that the embassy in Ankara is due for a new compound. She described the current main building as a 1950s complex that “needs a full upgrade.”

The Hurriyet newspaper said staff members at the embassy took shelter in a “safe room” inside the compound soon after the explosion.

Police swarmed the area and immediately cordoned it off. Forensic investigators in white outfits and gloves soon combed the site.

TV news video showed the embassy door blown off its hinges. The blast also shattered the windows of nearby businesses, littering debris on the ground and across the road. The inside of the embassy did not appear to be damaged.

Television video also showed what appeared to be a U.S. guard in a helmet and body armor surveying the area from the roof of an embassy building.

Fikret Bila, a columnist with Milliyet newspaper, which has offices in the area, said pieces of flesh and tree branches were strewed nearby.

The roads around the embassy compound have been under routine police surveillance for several years.

The attack came as the Milliyet newspaper reported the arrest of the son-in-law of Osama bin Laden in an Ankara security operation. But Bila said security officials did not believe there were links between the reported arrest and the attack.

In a statement, the U.S. Embassy thanked Turkey for “its solidarity and outrage over the incident.”

Ricciardone said the U.S. and Turkey “will continue to fight terrorism together,” and described the U.S. Embassy compound as secure.

“From today’s event, it is clear that we both suffer from this terrible, terrible problem of today’s world. We are determined after events like this even more to cooperate together until we defeat this problem together,” he said.

Erdogan echoed that sentiment, saying the attack aimed to disturb Turkey’s “peace and prosperity” and demonstrated a need for international cooperation against terrorism.

Nuland said U.S. officials were “working closely with the Turkish national police to make a full assessment of the damage and the casualties, and to begin an investigation.”

Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu vowed Turkey would spare no effort in protecting diplomatic facilities.

The wounded journalist was identified as Didem Tuncay, a former foreign news reporter for NTV, who had been en route to a meeting with Ricciardone at the time. Tuncay was taken to Numune Hospital in Ankara, and officials there said that the right side of her face had been hurt in the blast and that she was in serious condition.

Ricciardone visited her in the hospital and told reporters outside that he had invited her to the U.S. Embassy for tea.

He also paid tribute to the slain Turkish guard - identified as Mustafa Akarsu, 47 - calling him a “Turkish hero” who died while defending U.S. and Turkish staff members.

Americans in Turkey were warned to avoid visiting the embassy or U.S. consulates in Istanbul and Adana until further notice and were told to register on the State Department’s website.

“The Department of State advises U.S. 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 U.S. Consulate in Istanbul said in a statement.

Ed Royce, the chairman of the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee, said the attack was “another stark reminder of the constant terrorist threat against U.S. facilities, personnel and interests abroad.”

“Coming after Benghazi, it underscores the need for a comprehensive review of security at our diplomatic posts. The committee stands ready to assist the State Department in protecting our diplomats,” he said in a statement.

Turkey’s parliament speaker, Cemil Cicek, linked Friday’s attack to the arrest last month of nine Turkish human-rights lawyers, whom prosecutors have accused of links to the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front.

“There was an operation against this organization,” Cicek said and suggested the attack could be an attempt by the group to “say, ‘We are still here, we are alive.’”

James Jeffrey, a visiting fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy who was U.S. ambassador in Turkey between 2008 and 2010, said the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front was a resilient group that had been “relatively quiescent” in recent years. He said the organization was born out of the 1970s European tradition of pro-communist terrorism, and he drew a parallel with Germany’s now-defunct Baader-Meinhof gang.

“I do not see them as a major threat compared to al-Qaida,” Jeffrey said of the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front in a conference call with journalists. The group, he said, typically attacks with small arms and conducts periodic assaults “just to make sure people know they’re still out there.”

He said it seemed to have “very deep roots” and means of recruitment in several urban centers, including Istanbul, Ankara and possibly the coastal city of Izmir. Jeffrey said it was unlikely the attack was a response to recent regional developments - including, for example, Israel’s strike this week on a Syrian target - but did not rule out that the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front conducted the bombing as a kind of subcontractor for another group.

Information for this article was contributed by Suzan Fraser, Ezgi Akin, Christopher Torchia, Nedra Pickler, Bradley Klapper, Raf Casert and Cassandra Vinograd of The Associated Press and by Sebnem Arsu, Rick Gladstone, Tim Arango, Michael R. Gordon and Nicholas Kulish of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/02/2013

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