ANKARA – A massive explosion outside the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) headquarters near Ankara has killed at least several people and injured others, Turkey’s interior minister said Wednesday, calling it a “terrorist attack.” Ta.
“A terrorist attack was carried out against the Turkish aerospace industry… Unfortunately, there were no martyrs or injured people,” Ali Yelikaya said after local media reported explosions and gunfire outside the compound, about 40 kilometers outside Ankara. It’s out,” he wrote to X.
In a subsequent social media post, Yelikaya said that in addition to killing “two terrorists", three others were killed and 14 others injured.
TAI is owned by the Turkish government and military.
On October 23, 2024, security forces, firefighters and paramedics were dispatched to a Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI) facility after explosions and gunfire were reported after a terrorist attack in the Kahraman Kazan district of Ankara, Turkey. Go up. Ismail Kaplan/Anadolu/Getty
Footage from the scene broadcast by local media showed huge plumes of smoke and a massive fire at the scene in Kahraman Kazan, a small town about 40 kilometers north of Ankara.
Havertürk TV said the “hostage situation” was continuing without going into further details, but commercial broadcaster Nippon Television reported that after the first explosion at around 4 p.m. local time (8 a.m. Eastern time), Reported gunshots.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Turkey has been battling Kurdish insurgents based in the country’s south for decades. Turkish forces have carried out multiple cross-border attacks against the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and its ally YPG in northern Iraq and Syria in recent years.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union, and tens of thousands of people have been killed in fighting the Turkish government since the mid-1980s.
Wednesday’s attack near Ankara occurred during a major trade fair for defense and aerospace industries in Istanbul, which Ukraine’s top diplomats visited this week.
Turkey’s defense sector, widely known for its Bayraktar drone, accounts for nearly 80% of the country’s export revenue, with revenues expected to exceed $10.2 billion in 2023. The drone was not manufactured by TAI.
