A suspected suicide bomber detonated an explosive device at the entrance of the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital on Friday, killing himself and one other person, officials said.
U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardione told reporters that a guard at the gate was killed in the blast, and a Turkish citizen was wounded.
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. Footage showed that the door had been blown off its hinges and debris littered the ground and across the road.
An Associated Press journalist saw one woman who appeared to be seriously injured being carried into an ambulance but a hospital official said she was "not in critical condition." On its website, the Hurriyet newspaper identified the woman as Didem Tuncay, a television journalist who it said was at the embassy to get a U.S. visa.
Embassy heavily protected
State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said the explosion occurred on the perimeter of the embassy at about 1:15 pm local time. "We are working closely with the Turkish national police to make a full assessment of the damage and the casualties, and to begin an investigation," she said in a statement.
The embassy building is heavily protected. It is near an area where several other embassies, including that of Germany and France, are located. Hurriyet newspaper said staff at the embassy took shelter in "safe room" inside the compound soon after the explosion.
There was no claim of responsibility, but Kurdish rebels and Islamist militants are active in Turkey. Kurdish rebels, who are fighting for autonomy in the Kurdish-dominated southeast, have stepped up attacks in Turkey over the last year.
As well, homegrown militants tied to al-Qaeda have carried out suicide bombings in Istanbul, killing 58, in 2003. The targets were the British Consulate, a British bank and two synagogues.
In 2008, an attack blamed on al-Qaeda-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead.
Turkey has become a harsh critic of the regime in Syria, where a civil war has left at least 60,000 people dead. The first of six Patriot missile batteries being deployed to Turkey to protect against attack from Syria was declared operational and placed under NATO command on Saturday and others were expected to be operational in the coming days.
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