At least 4 dead in ‘terrorist attack’ on aerospace facility in Turkey
Ismail Kaplan/Anadolu via Getty Images
(LONDON) — Several people were killed in a “terrorist attack” at Turkish Aerospace Industries facilities near the capital of Ankara on Wednesday, according to Turkey’s interior minister.
At least four people were killed and 14 injured, including three who are in critical condition, in the attack, Turkish Interior Minister Ali Yerlikaya said.
Two attackers — a man and a woman — were killed and Turkish authorities are working to identify them, he said.
“I condemn this heinous attack,” Yerlikaya said in a post on X. “Our struggle will continue with determination and resolve until the last terrorist is neutralized.”
Yerlikaya said they will be releasing which terrorist organization is allegedly behind the attack.
Security camera footage from the attack showed two armed attackers approaching the entrance of the facility carrying backpacks.
The Turkish Aerospace Industries site is about 25 miles outside Ankara.
NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte called the incident “deeply concerning.”
“NATO stands with our Ally Turkey. We strongly condemn terrorism in all its forms and are monitoring developments closely,” he said in a statement on X.
This is a developing story. Check back for updates.
ABC News’ Somayeh Malekian, Morgan Winsor and Trisha Mukherjee contributed to this report.
(LONDON and SEOUL) — Refuse carried by a North Korean “trash balloon” landed inside the South Korean presidential compound in the capital city of Seoul on Thursday amid rising tensions between the two neighbors.
The South Korean Presidential Security Service “identified trash that blew up in the air and fell in the office compound early this morning,” the service said in a Thursday statement.
“After a safety inspection, the service collected the fallen objects after confirming they do not contain danger or contagiousness,” the service added. “The service is monitoring the situation in cooperation with the Joint Chiefs of Staff.”
This is the second time one of North Korea’s trash balloons fell inside the South Korean Presidential Office Compound.
Cross-border balloons have been one element of the recent deterioration in inter-Korean relations, with the period of diplomatic thaw from 2017 giving way to new tensions since the election of conservative South Korean President Yoon Suk-yeol in the spring of 2022.
The balloons have been found carrying household waste items including paper, vinyl and plastic bottles, according to the South Korean military. Some trash balloons carried manure.
Several fires have also been reported in metropolitan areas attributed to “heat timers” attached to the balloons.
North Korea launched a total of 5,500 trash balloons at South Korea on 22 occasions from May 28 to Sept. 23 this year, Lee Sung-joon — a spokesperson for South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff — said last month.
Seoul estimated that North Korea spent 550 million won — around $411,600 — to produce the balloons, South Korea’s Yonhap news agency reported.
Lee said in September after 120 balloons were launched that Seoul would consider military action to down them if necessary. “If North Korea’s continued trash balloons are judged to pose a serious threat to the safety of our citizens or to have crossed the line, the military will take stern military action,” he said.
South Korean civic groups have also launched balloons across the border, much to Pyongyang’s chagrin.
Such balloons often carry rice, essential medicine and leaflets critical of leader Kim Jong Un’s regime. North Korea has repeatedly protested such action and threatened a response.
The frontier region has been particularly tense this month. On Oct. 15, Seoul said North Korea blew up two border roads and deployed “heavy equipment” for “further operations.”
South Korean troops along the border fired warning shots in response, the South Korean Joint Chiefs of Staff said in a statement.
The detonations followed a North Korean warning that it intended to permanently seal off border access routes, cutting rail and road connections and reinforcing defensive fortifications.
The explosions came shortly after Kim ordered his artillery forces — traditionally the most potent threat to the capital Seoul, which sits around 35 miles from the frontier — onto full alert, having accused Seoul of flying drones over Pyongyang.
The face-off on the Korean Peninsula may now spread to Ukraine, where Seoul, Kyiv and Washington, D.C. have accused Pyongyang of deploying troops in support of Russia’s invasion.
Yonhap reported that Seoul is now considering sending weapons to Ukraine in response, having so far only provided humanitarian aid.
Yonhap also said South Korea is considering sending military and intelligence personnel to Ukraine to probe North Korean battlefield performance and help with interrogations of captured North Korean fighters.
ABC News’ Ellie Kaufman contributed to this report.
(WASHINGTON) — America First Policy Institute, a think tank aligned with former President Donald Trump, is presumed by federal authorities to have been attacked by Chinese hackers, sources familiar with the matter have told ABC News.
AFPI’s Chief Communications Officer Marc Lotter told ABC News in a statement that “it is not surprising” that “hostile foreign actors” would target AFPI, noting it’s a leading Trump-aligned policy group.
“As the leading policy group in the America First movement, it is not surprising that hostile foreign actors would attempt to infiltrate our IT,” Lotter wrote. “The tactics, techniques, and procedures of the threat actor are similar to that of nation-state sponsored activities we have seen, allowing us to remediate and respond quickly.”
“Like the America First movement itself, AFPI will not creep at the speed of government but act at the speed of business with the world’s leading cyber experts to even further enhance our already robust security,” he continued.
Politico first reported the alleged hack.
AFPI is a policy advisory think tank group that houses hundreds of former Trump administration officials, including AFPI board chairwoman Linda McMahon, who has been named co-chair of the Trump Transition Team.
The reports of APFI’s being targeted by foreign actors come on the heels of alleged Iranian hacking of the Trump campaign.
The Justice Department unsealed an indictment last month that charged three Iranians over their alleged involvement in the hack of emails from former President Donald Trump’s campaign.
The indictment charged the men with a series of crimes ranging from computer hacking charges, material support to a foreign terrorist organization, identity theft and aiding and abetting.
Prosecutors say the three men were all employed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps and engaged in a “wide-ranging hacking campaign” that used spear-phishing and other digital hacking techniques to compromise targets that included current and former U.S. government officials, members of the media, NGOs and “individuals associated with U.S. political campaigns.”
(TEL AVIV) — President Joe Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu spoke on Wednesday, according to the White House.
Vice President Kamala Harris also joined the call, the White House said.
It marked the first phone call between the two leaders in months, and since fighting has intensified in the Middle East as Israel continues its war against Hamas in Gaza while also seeking to root out Hezbollah infrastructure in Lebanon.
Biden and Netanyahu were expected to discuss Israel’s plans to strike Iran during their conversation, according to a source familiar with the matter.
The call was first reported by Axios.
Israel is currently weighing its response to a missile attack by Iran last week. The barrage of strikes was largely shot down by Israel, with the help of the U.S. military, and did not result in any major loss of life.
The Biden administration hoped to rein in the Israeli answer to the strikes. But so far, his diplomatic efforts in the region have been largely thwarted.
Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin was set to meet with Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant in Washington this week, but Gallant postponed his trip to the U.S.
When asked why Gallant was postponing the trip, Pentagon deputy press secretary Sabrina Singh referred questions to the Israeli government.
“You’d have to speak to the Israelis on that one. I was just told that he postponed his trip,” she said during Tuesday’s press briefing.
An hour before the Pentagon’s announcement, Israeli newspaper Haaretz cited sources as saying Netanyahu had “demanded” Gallant not leave for the U.S. until he spoke with Biden.
Benny Gantz, Israel’s former defense minister, posted on X that the cancellation of the trip harmed Israel’s national security “for personal and political considerations.”
ABC News’ Luis Martinez and Alexandra Hutzler contributed to this report.
