Suspect killed in attempted attack on Turkish police station

ISTANBUL — A man suspected of trying to force his way into a Turkish police station in a city near the Syrian border was shot dead on Tuesday, local officials said.

An officer was lightly wounded in the shootout at a security checkpoint outside the police headquarters in the southeastern city of Gaziantep, the governor’s office said in a statement.

There was “an armed attack” on the checkpoint at around 1220 GMT, but police responded immediately and shot the suspect dead, it said.

It was not immediately clear how many people were involved in the attempted attack.

NTV television quoted witnesses as saying two accomplices were on the run and an operation was under way to catch them.

The state-run Anadolu news agency said bomb disposal experts had been sent to the scene but the dead suspect had been checked for explosives and given the all clear.

It said police were hunting possible accomplices in several parts of the city.

Turkey has been hit by a wave of attacks blamed on so-called Daesh terror group militants and Kurdish militants.

An unclaimed suicide attack against a Kurdish wedding celebration killed 57 people in Gaziantep in August, with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blaming Daesh.

A gun attack on the Reina nightclub in Istanbul at New Year claimed by Daesh left 39 people, including 27 foreigners, dead.

Four days later a car packed with explosives blew up in front of the main courthouse in the western city of Izmir, killing a policeman and a court worker.

The government blamed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party for the Izmir attack.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said the attempted attack in Gaziantep resembled the one in Izmir. 

“According to initial findings it looks similar to the one in Izmir,” he said, adding: “Whatever they do, terror organisations will not succeed.”