The assassin of Russian Ambassador identified as a Turkish special forces police officer
Photographers captured the chilling moment a Turkish special forces police officer-turned-terrorist opened fire inside an Ankara art exhibit Monday, killing Russia’s ambassador to Turkey and wounding at least three others as he shouted jihadi propaganda before being killed, Foxnews reports.
Still and video cameras were trained on Russian Ambassador Andrei Karlov, who was giving a speech at the Ankara Center for Contemporary Art when a man in short hair and a dark suit suddenly shot Karlov in the back. Video captured of the incident shows Karlov grimacing and falling to the ground as the gunman moving toward his body. An Associated Press photographer on the scene took several images of the gunman and Karlov lying on the ground.
Turkish media reported the gunman had been killed. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova made the announcement that Karlov had been killed in a live televised statement.
“We qualify what happened as a terrorist act,” Zakharova said, according to AFP.
Russian President Vladimir Putin had been informed of the attack, the Kremlin said.
The assassin was identified as a Turkish special forces police officer, Ankara mayor Melih Gokcek told AFP. Gokcek said the attack was aimed at ruining relations between Turkey and Russia. The two countries had begun normalizing ties in June 2016. That followed a strained period caused when a Turkish combat aircraft shot down a Russian military jet in November 2015.
The gunman could be heard yelling “Allahu akbar” and shouting Arabic verses popular with Jihadis, according to a FoxNews.com translation of video of the attack.
“Do not forget Aleppo, do not forget Syria…we die there every day…We are not safe here in the streets when they are dying over there,” he said.
“You’ll never be safe as long as other mothers are unsafe…Keep filming me, only my dead corpse will leave this building.”
The gunman then turned back to the Syria conflict: “Whoever is responsible for this [tyranny] is going to pay.”
U.S. State Department spokesman John Kirby said U.S. officials were aware of reports about the shooting.
Shortly after the attack ended, the U.S. State Department tweeted about a reported shooting in the area of the U.S. embassy in Ankara and warned U.S. citizens to stay away. The State Department later clarified that it was referring to Karlov’s shooting and not a new incident.
“We condemn this act of violence, whatever its source,” Kirby said. “Our thoughts and prayers are with him and his family.”
Karlov, 62, had been Russia’s ambassador to Turkey since July 2013. He was Russia’s ambassador to North Korea from 2001-2006.
Karlov is survived by a wife and a son.
