The Turkish government said that two terrorists set off a bomb in front of the Interior Ministry buildings in Ankara. One of them died in the explosion, and the other was “neutralised” by officials, the media said.
The blast was the first in the Turkish city since 2016. It happened less than a mile from the parliament building, just hours before lawmakers were due to return after a three-month summer break, according to the Guardian.
Ali Yerlikaya, the Minister of the Interior, said on the social media site X that two attackers came up to the General Security Directorate building in a business car at about 9:30 a.m. local time on Sunday.
The Guardian said that Yerlikaya said one of the men blew himself up with explosives, and the other was killed by shooting from security forces outside the building.
He also said that the event left two police officers with minor injuries.
Authorities stopped traffic on a major road that goes near a number of government buildings, including the parliament building.
In other parts of the city where “suspicious package incidents” have happened, the police also said they would do controlled blasts.
According to the state-run news service Anadolu, the Turkish criminal court of peace in the capital city of Ankara has made it illegal for the media to talk about or report on the attack.
The Guardian said that last year, the Turkish government passed a broad new law to stop “disinformation.” People who are accused of breaking the law could face up to three years in jail.
The law went into effect just before a bomb went off on one of Istanbul’s biggest shopping streets last November, killing six people and hurting at least 81. The attack was pinned on radical Kurds by the Turkish government.
The attack in Ankara comes after a series of strikes in Turkey over the past few years, which The Guardian said were mostly put on members of the Islamic State or Kurdish terrorist groups.
During rush hour in the Turkish city of Ankara in February 2016, a bomb went off near a group of cars carrying military troops. Thirty people were killed and 60 were hurt.
A month later, a second bomb hit a major street in Ankara, killing 37 people and injuring 125. Both strikes were blamed on the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks.
In a way that was similar to how they reacted to other attacks, Turkish officials were quick to condemn what they said was false information about the latest attack in Ankara.
Fahrettin Altun, who is in charge of Turkey’s media department, which is part of the government, warned Turkish people not to share what he called “disinformation.”
Altun said on X, “We want to stress again how important it is that our media keep reporting on this issue with a sense of responsibility.”
The Interior Minister, who was recently named in a cabinet change after an election earlier this year, thanked the media for covering the attack in Ankara and reminded them that the Radio and Television Supreme Council has banned broadcasting.
He also said, “We are deeply hurt by what happened today… I’ll say it again: If you share these pictures, please delete them out of respect for our pain.
