Terrorist attack on state-owned Turkish Aerospace Industries kills at least 4 people, official says

Ankara — Four people were killed and 14 others wounded in an attack on the headquarters of a top Turkish defense firm near Ankara, Turkish officials said Wednesday. 

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was holding talks in Russia with Russian President Vladimir Putin at the time of the attack, confirmed the toll, and condemned what he said was a “heinous terrorist attack” at state-run Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI).

Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said three of the injured were in critical condition and that two attackers, “a woman and a man, have been neutralized.”

He said work was under way to determine their identities but did not say whether there were any other attackers still at large.

Local media broadcast video showing clouds of smoke and a large fire raging at the site in Kahramankazan, a small town about 25 miles north of Ankara.  

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Turkey’s defense ministry later reported that in response, it had conducted strikes on Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) targets in Northern Iraq and northern Syria, Reuters reported. 

Turkey has battled Kurdish insurgents based in the south of the country for decades. Turkish forces have conducted numerous cross-border offensives against the PKK and its allied group, the YPG, in northern Iraq and Syria in recent years.  

At their summit in Kazan, Putin expressed his condolences over the attack.

Media outlets which had been showing live video from the scene were forced to halt their broadcasts after Turkey’s media watchdog ordered a blackout of images from the site.

Haberturk TV said there was an ongoing “hostage situation,” without giving further details, while the private NTV television spoke of gunshots after an initial explosion at about 4 p.m. local time (8 a.m. Eastern Time).

The PKK is designated as a terrorist group by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union, and its battle against the Turkish government has left tens of thousands of people dead since the mid 1980s.

The attack near Ankara on Wednesday came as a major trade fair for the defense and aerospace industries was taking place in Istanbul, which was visited this week by Ukraine’s top diplomat.

Turkey’s defence sector, which is widely known for its Bayraktar drones, accounts for nearly 80% of the nation’s export revenues with revenues expected to top 10.2 billion dollars in 2023. The drones are not manufactured by TAI.