US consulate, police station attacked in Istanbul; 10 hurt

Istanbul, August 10

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Two attackers opened fire on the US consulate building in Istanbul on Monday while 10 persons were injured in a car bombing at a police station overnight, weeks after Turkey launched what it described as a "synchronised war on terror".

Police armed with automatic rifles cordoned off streets around the US consulate in the Sariyer district on the European side of the city, following the gun attack there.

Local media reports said two attackers, one man and one woman, fled after police fired back. There were no immediate reports of civilian injuries. Broadcaster NTV said police later detained the female suspect, who was wounded in the gunfire.

Overnight, a vehicle laden with explosives was used in the attack on the police station in the Istanbul district of Sultanbeyli at around 01.00 on Monday (2200GMT on Sunday), injuring three police officers and seven civilians, police said.

Broadcaster CNN Turk said two gunmen and a senior officer from the police bomb squad, who rushed to the scene, were killed in a firefight that continued into Monday morning in the district on the Asian side of the Bosphorus waterway dividing Istanbul.

Turkey has been in a heightened state of alert since it launched what officials described as a "synchronised war on terror" last month, including air strikes against Islamic State fighters in Syria and Kurdish militants in northern Iraq, and the detention of hundreds of suspects at home.

US diplomatic missions have been targeted in Turkey in the past.

The far-leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), whose members are among those detained in recent weeks, claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at the US embassy in Ankara in 2013 which killed a Turkish security guard. —Reuters