Gunmen Killed Outside U.S. Consulate in Istanbul

Three police officers and three suspected terrorists were killed in a ten-minute shoot out at the United States consulate in Istanbul. The consulate was not hit.

News footage from the scene shows confusion as ambulances ferried the injured to a nearby state hospital, while police and security attempted to cordon off the area. The consulate is built on a hill and is surrounded by high walls in an exclusive district of Istanbul, Turkey’s biggest city and its commercial capital. It was relocated from downtown Istanbul to the northern suburbs for security reasons five years ago.

No Americans were killed or injured in the attack, consulate officials say. Turkish officials say they don't know who the attackers were or what their motive was. Istanbul Governor Muammer Güler said one of the policemen died at the scene and two others died in the hospital. One of the men was part of the consulate’s security team. The other two were traffic police. A policeman and a tow-truck driver were also injured.

The New York Times reports that

Witnesses and news reports said that about 15 minutes before the attack, the three gunmen were seen sitting in a gray car with another man — apparently the driver — that was parked in a carwash shop near the consulate. At about 10:30 a.m., the three, who looked to be between 25 and 30 years old, hopped out of the vehicle, walked up to a police post at the main entrance of the consulate, and opened fire, taking the officers by surprise.

Two officers returned fire and killed all three attackers. Authorities said the three men used handguns and a “pump action shotgun” and that the fourth man escaped by car.

Istanbul has seen several terrorist assaults. In November 2003, bombs exploded at two synagogues, the British consulate, and the Istanbul offices of London-based HSBC. The bombs killed 62 people.

Today’s attack comes against a backdrop of growing political tension in Turkey as the moderate Islamist government struggles for survival against the pro-secular security establishment. The government won a landslide victory in last year's elections, but secularists in the judiciary and the military are trying to remove it by alleging in court that it is imposing sharia law in Turkey.

The country is overwhelmingly Sunni Muslim but has had a strictly secular constitution since its creation as a modern state in 1923.