A group of unidentified gunmen opened fire on Turkish security guards outside the United States Consulate in Istanbul, Turkey, on Wednesday, the Turkish authorities said, and at least three police officers and three assailants were killed.
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Times Topics: TurkeyThe late-morning attack was the first on a diplomatic mission in the city since 2003 when 62 people were killed in assaults on the British consulate, a bank and two synagogues. While the motives behind this attack were not immediately clear, Turkish officials described the gunmen as terrorists.
In a televised news conference, Governor Muammer Guler said one of the policemen died at the scene after a nearly 10-minute gun battle and two others died of bullet wounds in a hospital. One of the officers was part of the consulate security detail, while the other two were traffic police. A policeman and a tow-truck driver were also injured.
‘’Three policemen were martyred and three attackers were killed,” Mr. Guler said. Ross Wilson, the the United States ambassador in Turkey, said that none of the dead or injured were Americans.
After the attack, crowds of onlookers and police milled around the 15-foot high walls sheltering the American compound and police cordoned off the area. A helicopter was seen hovering above. Television footage showed one body lying on the ground..
The consulate is a heavily fortified building with heavy security measures. Witnesses and news reports said that about 15 minutes before the attack, the three gunmen were seen sitting in a gray car with another man — apparently the driver — that was parked in a carwash shop near the consulate. At about 10:30 a.m., the three, who looked to be between 25 and 30 years old, hopped out of the vehicle, walked up to a police post at the main entrance of the consulate, and opened fire, taking the officers by surprise.
“One of them approached a policeman while hiding his gun and shot him in the head,” a witness, Yazuz Erket Yuksel, said in remarks reported by Reuters.
In the ensuing clash, two of the officers fired back, killing all three attackers, according to news reports. The authorities said the three men used handguns and a “pump action shotgun,” and that the fourth man escaped by car.
One witness, Huseyin Tuzemen, was across the street from the consulate when the gunfire erupted.
“I was sitting at the cafe and there were suddenly some gunshots,” he said. I lied on the ground. I didn’t see where the shots came from. I found myself in the fridge because of fear.”
Istanbul’s chief prosecutor, Aykut Cengiz Engin, told reporters at a televised news conference that the authorities ‘’consider the incident a terrorist act.”
Turkey’s president, Abdullah Gul, condemned the attack in a statement to reporters. “I strongly denounce such terror attacks,” he said. “Turkey struggles and will continue to struggle against the mentalities that organize and stand behind these attacks until the very end. Everyone, after all, has seen that nothing can be achieved through terror.”
From the police post, visitors to the consulate usually clamber up steps to the hilltop building which some people say resembles a fortress.
The consulate was for many years located in the center of the city in a bustling area near Taksim Square. But it was relocated five years ago to the Istinye area near the Bosphorous Straits to be better protected from terrorist attacks.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which took place on a quiet side street lined with apartment houses.
In a statement, the consulate said: “At approximately 11 a.m. at least one assailant opened fire near the Turkish post at the main entrance of the consulate. We have no reports that any American consulate employees were injured in the attack.”
Several consular officers were absent from the building at the time of the attack, attending a meeting hosted by the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration.
In a separate development in remote eastern Turkey, three German tourists on a climbing expedition to Mount Ararat were kidnapped by Kurdish separatists who seized their hostages as they camped at an altitude of 10,500 feet, the semiofficial Anatolian News Agency reported Wednesday.
Susanne Fowler contributed reporting from Paris, and Anahad O’Connor contributed from New York.
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