Turkey: Ankara Embassy Bombing TR May13

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

• On 1 February 2013 a Turkish national named Ecevit Sanli posed as a courier, and used the ruse of delivering mail to get within striking distance of his target: the American Embassy in Ankara, Turkey.
• A post-incident investigation later revealed Sanli to be a convicted terrorist who had reentered Turkey illegally. He had also long been a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Army/Front (DHKP/C), an anti-NATO Marxist/Leninist Organization.
• This was the DHKP/C’s first violent attack against an official agency of the U.S. government, and was partially rooted in secular motives reminiscent of the Cold War era.