The US Embassy in Ankara has been the target of gunfire, with several shots reportedly fired from a vehicle, hitting a window.
Gunshots were reportedly fired at the embassy on Monday morning, according to reports in the Turkish media. The shots were fired from a moving vehicle at around 5 a.m. At least one of the bullets hit a security booth. Police teams were searching for the suspects, who fled in a white car.
Police have detained two suspects believed to have been involved in the firing of gunshots early Monday at the US Embassy in Ankara. The two suspects were taken into custody in the afternoon, and the vehicle used by the assailants in the attack was also seized by the police, according to local media. One of the suspects reportedly confessed to the police that he took part in the attack.
US Embassy spokesman David Gainer thanked the police for their “rapid response” and said there were no reports of injuries. The embassy is closed this week to mark the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha, or the festival of sacrifice.
“We can confirm a security incident took place at the US Embassy early this morning. We have no reports of any injuries and we are investigating the details,” David Gainer, the spokesperson of the US Embassy told the Hürriyet Daily News. “We thank the Turkish National Police for their rapid response,” he added.
The Ankara Governor’s Office said in a statement that six shots were fired and three bullets hit the metal door and glass panel of a security booth.
“We condemn the attack on the US Embassy. This is clearly an attempt to create chaos. Turkey is a safe country, and all foreign missions are under the protection of the law,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s spokesperson İbrahim Kalın said in a tweet.
“An armed attack against the US Embassy is a clear provocation. Embassies are under the protection of our state,” ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP) spokesman Ömer Çelik said.
The incident comes as ties between Ankara and Washington are in an unprecedented crisis. Tensions between the US and Turkey have emerged over a range of issues, including Ankara’s detention of American pastor Andrew Brunson, which has triggered a tit-for-tat trade dispute and pushed Turkey’s lira currency to a record low.
The US administration had imposed sanctions and vowed to do more against Turkey in the event the pastor was not immediately released. However, Erdoğan has reacted to this threat by radicalizing his rhetoric and provoking his grass roots.
On Monday, he continued to use the same radicalizing rhetoric and claimed that “attacks against the Turkish economy are no different than attacking the adhan [call to prayer] and the flag,” the state-run Anadolu news agency reported.
“The purpose is the same. The purpose is to bring Turkey and the Turkish people to their knees and hold them captive,” Erdoğan claimed in a video message on the eve of the Muslim festival of Eid al-Adha. “Those who tried to make Turkey bow before them by using terror groups, traitors among us and plots, will soon see that Turkey will not give up on the exchange rate,” he added.
Erdoğanist columnist says the US plans to drop ‘gay bombs’
Meanwhile, a staunchly pro-Erdoğan columnist for a Turkish pro-government newspaper said the United States planned to drop bombs on its enemies that change their targets’ sexual preferences.
“When the United States is an enemy of a country and plans to go to war, it plans either to drop a bomb that will change the sexual preferences of that country’s population or one that will kill them all,” wrote Mehmet Barlas in his Monday column for the Sabah newspaper.
The original “gay bomb” had been planned as an alternative to the atomic bombs dropped on the Japanese cities of Nagasaki and Hiroshima during World War II, Barlas explained, quoting documents he said had been recently declassified.
The Sabah columnist went on to claim that the United States aims to use similar chemical weapons to sterilize large numbers of people in order to prevent overpopulation. Some of these chemicals could be transmitted through vaccines, said Barlas.
The 2003 Iraq War and the instability caused by the Arab Spring uprisings are more instances of “Deep America” and its attempts to control the world population, he added.
