Turkey: Rockets fired on Ankara police HQ
Rocket fired, grenades thrown by far radical left group on police headquarters in Turkish capital. Man suspected of involvement in attack shot dead, second wounded. Site of rocket attack home to anti-Erdogan protests
Turkish authorities
shot and killed one suspect and wounded another after a rocket attack late on Friday on police headquarters in the capital.
The suspects were believed to be members of the far-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C), the Turkish National Police directorate said in a statement.
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The DHKP-C is a far-left group that has carried out recent attacks in Ankara, including a suicide bombing at the US Embassy in February that killed the bomber and a guard. No one was killed or wounded in the attack on the police compound that occurred late on Friday.
Site of rocket attack (Photo: Reuters)
The suspected assailants were pursued overnight in a major manhunt after they fled on foot from the scene of the attack and exchanged fire with police, the statement said.
They perpetrators used a rocket launcher to strike two buildings and the grounds belonging to police in the district of Dikmen, it said.
Dikmen is one of the places across Turkey where anti-government protests have flared in recent months and recently anti-government protests near Ankara's university begun anew.
Police, protesters clash near university (Photo: Reuters)
The suspect who was killed also took part in an attack on the ruling AK Party's headquarters in Ankara in March, the police statement said.
The DHKP-C claimed responsibility for that attack, carried out with grenades and a shoulder-fired missile launcher. The Justice Ministry was also targeted the same day.
The DHKP-C is an anti-American Marxist group, founded in the late 1970s and listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union.
In addition to various radical leftist groups, Islamist extremists and Kurdish militants have staged attacks in Turkish cities in recent years.
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