Unidentified assailants fired a grenade launcher rocket at Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party’s (AKP) headquarters in Istanbul on Friday.
Police have launched a wide-scale search for the perpetrators of the attacks. No casualties have been reported so far.
The attack is the second in the past two hours. The first attack involved an unknown number of militants, who fired off a rocket at the Istanbul Police Directorate in the Emniyet neighborhood of Fatih district in central Istanbul.
According to the governor, there were no casualties in the attack, as the rocket struck the police building’s garden wall only.
The governor of Istanbul, Vasip Sahin, said that the munitions used in the attack were anti-tank rounds fired from a rocket launcher. MEMO has seen photographs that indicate that the weapon used could be an M72 LAW, a US-made, single-shot anti-armor rocket launcher.
Images provided by AKP to MEMO show an unexploded round buried into a hanging copy of the Turkish national anthem in one of the third floor offices of the building.
The rocket attacks also caused significant damage inside the AKP building, with photographs showing panes of glass blown out, shattered glass on the floors of the offices and walls and dividers damaged by the explosive munitions.
 
TAGS: Arab Times, rocket attack, Istanbul,  Justice and Development Party’s (AKP), police