Bomber had terrorist ties

Marxist was ill, given probation,Turkey says

Francis Ricciardone (left), U.S. ambassador to Turkey, consoles a relative of Mustafa Akarsu during a funeral Saturday in Ankara for the security guard who was killed in a suicide bombing Friday at the U.S. Embassy.

Francis Ricciardone (left), U.S. ambassador to Turkey, consoles a relative of Mustafa Akarsu during a funeral Saturday in Ankara for the security guard who was killed in a suicide bombing Friday at the U.S. Embassy.

Sunday, February 3, 2013

— The suicide bomber who struck the U.S. Embassy in Ankara spent several years in prison on terrorism charges but was released on probation after being diagnosed with a hunger strike-related brain disorder, officials said Saturday.

The bomber, identified as 40-year-old leftist militant Ecevit Sanli after Turkish authorities conducted DNA tests, killed himself and a Turkish security guard Friday, in what U.S. officials said was a terrorist attack. He was armed with enough TNT to blow up a two-story building and also detonated a hand grenade, officials said. Sanli was a convicted terrorist who had twice attacked government facilities in Istanbul but was released from prison under an amnesty program. Earlier Saturday, officials in the Black Sea town of Ordu said he was a resident.

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Friday that police suspect the bomber was connected to the outlawed leftist militant group Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, also known as DHPK-C. And on Saturday the group claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement posted on a website linked to the group. It said Sanli carried out the act of “self-sacrifice” on behalf of the group.

The statement by the group included two photographs of Sanli. In one, he is holding an assault rifle, and a banner bearing the hammer and-sickle symbol of communism is behind him.

The group called itself “immortal” and said, “Down with imperialism and the collaborating oligarchy.” But it gave no reason for attacking the U.S. Embassy. The authenticity of the website was confirmed by a government terrorism expert who spoke on condition of anonymity in line with rules that bar government employees from speaking to reporters without prior authorization.

The statement, which called the United States “the murderer of the peoples of the world” and also denounced U.S. foreign policy, was released by the group and a translation was distributed by the SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors the communications of extremist groups.The message condemned Turkey’s policy of supporting Syrian rebels fighting the government of President Bashar Assad and cooperation with the United States.

Turkey’s private NTV television, meanwhile, said police detained three people Saturday who may be connected to the U.S. Embassy attack during operations in Ankara and Istanbul. Two of the suspects were being questioned by police in Ankara, while the third was taken into custody in Istanbul and was being transported to Ankara.

NTV, citing unidentified security sources, said one of the suspects is a man whose identity Sanli purportedly used to enter Turkey illegally, while the second was suspected of forging identity papers. There was no information about the third suspect.

Earlier, Turkish Interior Minister Muammer Gulersaid Sanli had fled Turkey after he was released from jail in 2001, but managed to return to the country “illegally,” using a fake ID. It was not clear how long before the attack he had returned to Turkey. According to the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency, Sanli returned to Turkey illegally only a few days before the attack by taking a boat from a Greek island across the Aegean. Police officials in Ankara could not immediately be reached for comment.

The Marxist group has claimed responsibility for assassinations and bombings since the 1970s, but it has been relatively quiet in recent years. Compared with al-Qaida, it has not been seen as a strong terrorist threat.

Sanli’s motives remained unclear. But some Turkish government officials have linked the attack to the arrest last month of dozens of suspected members of the group in a nationwide sweep.

Officials said Sanli was arrested in 1997 for alleged involvement in attacks on Istanbul’s police headquarters and a military guesthouse, and he was jailed on charges of membership in the outlawed group.

While in prison awaiting trial, he took part in a major hunger strike that led to the deaths of dozens of inmates, according to a statement from the Ankara governor’s office. The protesters opposed a maximum-security system in which prisoners were held in small cells instead of large wards.

Sanli was diagnosed with Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome and released on probation in 2001, after the introduction of legislation that allowed hunger strikers with the disorder to get appropriate treatment. The syndrome is a malnutrition-related brain illness that affects vision, muscle coordination and memory, and that can cause hallucinations.

Sanli fled Turkey after his release and was wanted by Turkish authorities. He was convicted in absentia in 2002 for belonging to a terrorist group and attempting to overthrow the government.

On Saturday, the U.S. flag at the embassy in Ankara flew at half-staff and already tight security was increased. Police sealed off a street in front of the security checkpoint where the explosion knocked a door off its hinges and littered the road with debris. Police vehicles were parked in streets surrounding the building.

The Ankara governor’s office, citing the findings of a bomb squad that inspected the site, said Sanli had used 13.2 pounds of TNT for the suicide attack and also detonated a hand grenade. That amount of TNT can demolish “a two-story reinforced building,” according to Nihat Ali Ozcan, a terrorism expert at the Ankara-based Economic Policy Research Foundation of Turkey.

Officials had earlier said that the bomber detonated a suicide vest at the checkpoint on the outer perimeter of the compound.

The guard who was killed was standing outside the checkpoint. The U.S. ambassador attended his funeral Saturday in a town just outside of Ankara.

A Turkish TV journalist was seriously wounded, and two other guards were lightly injured.

The Marxist group’s forerunner, Devrimci Sol, or Revolutionary Left, was formed in 1978 as a Marxist group openly opposed to the United States and NATO. It has attacked Turkish, U.S. and other foreign targets since then, including two U.S. military contractors and a U.S. Air Force officer.

The group, designated as a terrorist organization by the United States and other European allies, changed its name to the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front in 1994.

Friday’s attack came as NATO deployed six Patriot anti-missile systems to protect its ally Turkey from a possible spillover from the civil war raging across the border in Syria. The U.S., Netherlands and Germany are each providing two Patriot batteries.

Ozcan, the terrorism expert, said the Syrian regime, which had backed terrorist groups in Turkey, including autonomy-seeking Kurdish rebels, during the Cold War and through the 1990s, had recently revived ties with these groups.

As Turkey began to support the Syrian opposition, Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime began to try “rebuilding its ties with these organizations,” Ozcan said.

Radikal newspaper reported that the Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front had recently been taking an interest in “regional issues,” reviving its anti-American stance and taking on “a more pro-Assad position.”

Former U.S. Ambassador to Turkey Ross Wilson speculated that the masterminds of the embassy bombing may have been partly motivated by U.S.-Turkish policy on Syria.

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

It was the second deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in five months.

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. A suspect in the attack is in custody in Egypt.

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.

Information for this article was contributed by Suzan Fraser, Ezgi Akin, Burhan Ozbilici and Christopher Torchia of The Associated Press; and by Tim Arango and Sebnem Arsu of The New York Times.

Front Section, Pages 1 on 02/03/2013