Istanbul:
Unknown gunmen opened fire on Friday on a Turkish military vehicle in Istanbul, lightly wounding two soldiers, a top police official said.
The vehicle was travelling on a road close to Istanbul's main ring road in the Nurtepe district of Istanbul when a group of four gunmen opened fire, the Dogan news agency reported.
The two wounded soldiers were only lightly hurt and in a good condition, Istanbul's police chief Mustafa Caliskan said after visiting them in military hospital, Dogan said.
Television pictures showed that the vehicle was a minivan belonging to the Turkish gendarmerie, a branch of the army responsible for domestic security. There were several bullet marks in the windscreen.
Dogan said that there were marks left on the vehicle by some 20 bullets from a Kalashnikov rifle. The soldiers appeared to have been wounded by fragments and broken glass.
There was no indication over who could have carried out the extremely unusual attack.
The four suspected attackers are missing, Dogan said.
Istanbul is on a high security alert as the authorities wage a triple crackdown against suspected Islamic State (IS) group jihadists, Kurdish militants and banned ultra-left radicals.
Following the collapse of a ceasefire earlier this year, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has carried out a string of deadly attacks against the security forces.
Such gun attacks have been common in the Kurdish-dominated southeast but very rare in Istanbul.
The vehicle was travelling on a road close to Istanbul's main ring road in the Nurtepe district of Istanbul when a group of four gunmen opened fire, the Dogan news agency reported.
The two wounded soldiers were only lightly hurt and in a good condition, Istanbul's police chief Mustafa Caliskan said after visiting them in military hospital, Dogan said.
Television pictures showed that the vehicle was a minivan belonging to the Turkish gendarmerie, a branch of the army responsible for domestic security. There were several bullet marks in the windscreen.
Dogan said that there were marks left on the vehicle by some 20 bullets from a Kalashnikov rifle. The soldiers appeared to have been wounded by fragments and broken glass.
There was no indication over who could have carried out the extremely unusual attack.
The four suspected attackers are missing, Dogan said.
Istanbul is on a high security alert as the authorities wage a triple crackdown against suspected Islamic State (IS) group jihadists, Kurdish militants and banned ultra-left radicals.
Following the collapse of a ceasefire earlier this year, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) has carried out a string of deadly attacks against the security forces.
Such gun attacks have been common in the Kurdish-dominated southeast but very rare in Istanbul.
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