At least five people have been killed and 22 injured in an attack at the headquarters of an aviation company near the Turkish capital Ankara, authorities have confirmed.Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said that two attackers, a woman and a man, have been “neutralised”, adding that the attack had most likely involved Kurdish separatists the PKK.
Initial images shown by the NTV television channel showed a large cloud of smoke in front of the entrance of Turkish Aerospace Industries (TAI), which is located some 40km (25 miles) outside the capital.No group has said it carried out the attack.
It is also not clear how many people were involved in the attack and if there are other suspects to be apprehended.
Local media is reporting that blast took place around the time of a shift change, and staff had to be directed to shelters.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan – who is in Russia for the Brics summit – gave his reaction.
“I condemn this vile terror attack and wish God’s mercy on our martyrs,” he said during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in remarks broadcast live on TV.
He later posted a lengthy statement on X, saying that security forces acted quickly to neutralise the threat, and that “no terrorist organisation, no evil focus targeting our security will be able to achieve their goals”.
Turkish authorities have imposed a media blackout on details of the attack, and users in large areas of the country have reported not being able to use social media sites like YouTube, Instagram, Facebook and X.
The president of Turkey’s Radio and TV Supreme Council, Ebubekir Sahin, has warned that all images relating to the incident should be removed from social media, and urged users not to share images which “will serve the purpose of terrorism”.
TAI is a key player in Turkey’s aerospace industry, designing, developing and manufacturing various aircraft for commercial and military use.
It is the company designated by the Nato member to be the licensed manufacturer for the US-designed F-16 fighter jets. TAI also plays a role in modernising older aircraft for use by the Turkish military.
The firm’s two principal owners are the Turkish Armed Forces and a civilian arm of Turkey’s government charged with improving its defence capabilities and manage military procurement.
The blast took place as a major trade fair for defence and aerospace industries was going on in Istanbul this week.
Turkey is no stranger to attacks branded as terrorism.
Historically, these have mostly been blamed on Kurdish separatists, as is the case with Wednesday’s attack. Their camps in northern Syria and elsewhere in the region have come under repeated air strikes from the Turkish air force.
But the Islamic State group (IS) is also present in Turkey, and then there is the question of the Turkish aerospace industry, which produces drones that have changed the entire course of a war between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
In the early stages of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, the latter made major use of Turkish-made Bayraktar drones to target Russian tanks before Ukraine began mass-producing its own drones.
So the key question now, as the investigation into this attack gets under way, is who would benefit from doing this and why.