As the dust settles in the US Embassy bombing in Ankara, questions have started to be asked already about whether there was a serious lapse in security on the part of Turkey, as well as some European countries, given that the suicide bomber involved was known to have a record, and yet appears to have traveled freely. He did under an assumed name, from Germany, entering Turkey from Greece in order to carry out this attack. 

Many are wondering if the attack, which killed a Turkish security guard and seriously injured a well-known television reporter, could have been prevented with more vigilant surveillance and international cooperation against terrorism. Prompting these questions is the fact that Ecevit Sanli, who carried out the attack on the US Embassy, was a well known member of the ultra-left wing Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), which is designated as a terrorist group internationally.

The group, which is driven by a Marxist-Leninist ideology, is opposed to the US and to NATO, and says the Turkish government is a lackey to Western imperialism. It declares its aim to be to put an end to this by violent means. The DHKP-C shot to prominence after it killed the well-known Turkish businessman and industrialist Ozdemir Sabanci in his office in Istanbul, in 1996, together with his secretary and an associate. 

Fehriye Erdal, one of the perpetrators who had been lodged in the company beforehand as a tea girl by the group to let the killers into the building, escaped to Belgium after the attack where, Turkish officials claim, she received legal protection against extradition by citing the state of human rights in Turkey. She was tried in Belgium, where she was only held under house arrest, and escaped shortly before her conviction. The topic remains a sore point in Turkish-Belgian ties.