Two police officers were injured this Sunday in a suicide attack near the Turkish Parliament, hours before he resumed his parliamentary activity after the summer. The Minister of the Interior, Ali Yerlikayareported in a statement that the attack occurred in front of the Ministry of Interiorwhich is located a few meters from the chamber.
“At around 9:30 a.m., two terrorists who were in a light commercial vehicle in front of the entrance gate of the General Directorate of Security of our Interior Ministry, carried out a bomb attack,” said Yerlikaya. The note reports that one of the perpetrators of the attack died during the explosion, while the other “was neutralized”, a term used by Turkish authorities to refer to those detained, injured or killed. Interior has not yet attributed the attack to any organization.
The HaberTürk radio station showed images of the vehicle where the explosion occurred and a column of smoke near the parliament. They also showed images of the second attacker’s weapon, a type of rocket launcher. The Ankara Prosecutor’s Office has launched an investigation into the attack and at the moment, authorities have not revealed any further details of what happened.
In the last decade there have been attacks of Kurdish militant groups, from the extreme left, as well as the Islamic State terrorist group. The area has been completely cordoned off and security forces are detonating suspicious packages they have found in the area.