If this is the result of having a president who is great in foreign policy, then anyone is qualified for that job.
ISTANBUL — A suicide bomber attacked the American Embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Friday, detonating himself inside a security entrance to the compound in a blast that officials said killed a Turkish guard and wounded a visiting Turkish journalist. The State Department immediately warned American citizens to avoid United States diplomatic missions in Turkey.
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Mehmet Ali Ozcan/European Pressphoto Agency
People gathered outside the United States Embassy in Ankara, Turkey, on Friday.
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Adem Altan/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The bomb appeared to have exploded inside the security checkpoint at the side entrance of the embassy, but did not do damage inside the embassy itself.
Alaattin Yusel, the governor of Ankara, told reporters in televised remarks that the explosion took place at a security entrance inside the embassy grounds. He spoke in front of the main embassy building, which apparently was not damaged, as he stood with the American ambassador, Francis J. Ricciardone Jr.
News photographs of the explosion site showed extensive damage to a squat one-story building just inside the compound where visitors are checked by security guards and an X-ray machine.
The semiofficial Anatolian News Agency quoted the interior minister, Muammer Guler, as saying the bomber was a known member of an outlawed leftist extremist group. But the precise motive for the attack was unclear.
Turkish news media said preliminary investigations by security officials said the bomber might have detonated a suicide belt prematurely as he was going through security controls. NTV, a private television broadcaster, said embassy security cameras had shown the assailant entering and panicking as he walked through an X-ray machine.
The other fatality in the blast was identified as Mustafa Akarsu, 47, one of the Turkish security guards at the embassy.
The wounded victim was identified as Didem Tuncay, 39, a former foreign news reporter for NTV, who had been en route to a meeting with Mr. Ricciardone at the time. Ms. Tuncay was taken to Numune Hospital in Ankara, and officials there said that the right side of her face had been hurt in the blast and that she was in serious condition.
Turkish-American relations are strong and friendly, but Turkey has not been immune to anti-American attacks in recent years. In 2008, three gunmen attacked security guards outside the American Consulate in Istanbul in a shootout that left the attackers and three police officers dead.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/02/world/europe/2-dead-in-suicide-bombing-at-us-embassy-in-turkey.html?_r=0
