ISTANBUL A member of a Turkish leftist group that accuses Washington of using Turkey as its "slave" carried out a suicide bomb attack on the U.S. embassy, the Ankara governor's office cited DNA tests as showing on Saturday. 
 
 Ecevit Sanli, a member of the leftist Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front (DHKP-C), blew himself up in a perimeter gatehouse on Friday as he tried to enter the embassy, also killing a Turkish security guard. 
 
 The DHKP-C, virulently anti-American and listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Turkey, claimed responsibility in a statement on the internet in which it said Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan was a U.S. "puppet". 
 
 "Murderer America! You will not run away from people's rage," the statement on "The People's Cry" website said, next to a picture of Sanli wearing a black beret and military-style clothes and with an explosives belt around his waist. 
 
 It warned Erdogan that he too was a target. 
 
 Turkey is an important U.S. ally in the Middle East with common interests ranging from energy security to counter-terrorism. Leftist groups including the DHKP-C strongly oppose what they see as imperialist U.S. influence over their nation. 
 
 DNA tests confirmed that Sanli was the bomber, the Ankara governor's office said. It said he had fled Turkey a decade ago and was wanted by the authorities. 
 
 Born in 1973 in the Black Sea port city of Ordu, Sanli was jailed in 1997 for attacks on a police station and a military staff college in Istanbul, but his sentence was deferred after he fell sick during a hunger strike. He was never re-jailed. 
 
 Condemned to life in prison in 2002, he fled the country a year later, officials said. Interior Minister Muammer Guler said he had re-entered Turkey using false documents. 
 
 Erdogan, who said hours after the attack that the DHKP-C were responsible, met his interior and foreign ministers as well as the head of the army and state security service in Istanbul on Saturday to discuss the bombing. 
 
 Three people were detained in Istanbul and Ankara in connection with the attack, state broadcaster TRT said. 
 
 The White House condemned the bombing as an "act of terror", while the U.N. Security Council described it as a heinous act. U.S. officials said on Friday the DHKP-C were the main suspects but did not exclude other possibilities. 
 
 Islamist radicals, extreme left-wing groups, ultra-nationalists and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past. 
 
 SYRIA 
 
 The DHKP-C statement called on Washington to remove Patriot missiles, due to go operational on Monday as part of a NATO defense system, from Turkish soil. 
 
 The missiles are being deployed alongside systems from Germany and the Netherlands to guard Turkey, a NATO member, against a spillover of the war in neighboring Syria. 
 
 "Our action is for the independence of our country, which has become a new slave of America," the statement said. 
 
 Turkey has been one of the leading advocates of foreign intervention to end the civil war in Syria and has become one of President Bashar al-Assad's harshest critics, a stance groups such as the DHKP-C view as submission to an imperialist agenda. 
 
 "Organizations of the sectarian sort like the DHKP-C have been gaining ground as a result of circumstances surrounding the Syrian civil war," security analyst Nihat Ali Ozcan wrote in a column in Turkey's Daily News. 
 
 The Ankara attack was the second on a U.S. mission in four months. On September 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three American personnel were killed in an Islamist militant attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya. 
 
 The DHKP-C was responsible for the assassination of two U.S. military contractors in the early 1990s in protest against the first Gulf War, and it fired rockets at the U.S. consulate in Istanbul in 1992, according to the U.S. State Department. 
 
 It has been blamed for previous suicide attacks, including one in 2001 that killed two police officers and a tourist in Istanbul's central Taksim Square. It has carried out a series of deadly attacks on police stations in the last six months. 
 
 Friday's attack may have come in retaliation for an operation against the DHKP-C last month in which Turkish police detained 85 people. A court subsequently remanded 38 of them in custody over links to the group. 
 
 (Writing by Nick Tattersall; Editing by Mark Heinrich) ||||| Pictured: Suicide bomber who attacked U.S Embassy in Turkey as it's revealed he was jailed for FIVE YEARS on terrorism charges 
 
 
 
 Ecevit Sanli, 40, has been named as the suicide bomber in Friday's attack on US Embassy in Ankara 
 
 Sanli was convicted on terrorism charges in 1997 and released after he was diagnosed with a hunger-strike related brain disorder 
 
 
 
 Was armed with six kilograms of TNT and a hand grenade 
 
 
 
 A security guard was killed at the entrance alongside the suicide bomber 
 
 
 
 Obama administration calls it an 'act of terror' and told Westerners to be vigilant across the country 
 
 New Secretary of State John Kerry's first job was to deal with the act of terrorism 
 
 
 
 Bomber: Turkish officials identified the suicide bomber who attacked the US embassy as convicted terrorist Ecevit Sanli, pictured 
 
 The first pictures of the suicide bomber who attacked the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on Friday have emerged as Turkish officials identified him as convicted terrorist Ecevit Sanli. 
 
 Armed with six kilograms of TNT - enough to blow up a two-story building - and a hand grenade, Sanli, killed himself and a Turkish security guard in the brazen attack, which has been labelled an act of terror by U.S. officials. 
 
 As the U.S. flag flew at half-staff today and security at the embassy was heightened, details about the 40-year-old assailant emerged. 
 
 Sanli was not linked to al Qaeda, rather he was a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C. He had spent five years in prison on terrorism charges after he was arrested in 1997 for alleged involvement in attacks on two official buildings in Istanbul. 
 
 But he was released in 2001 after being diagnosed with a brain disorder that he suffered during a prison hunger strike that killed dozens of inmates. 
 
 He fled Turkey after he was freed but managed to come back 'illegally' using a fake ID, Turkish officials said. It wasn't clear how long before Friday's attack he returned to his home country. 
 
 DHKP-C, which has claimed responsibility for assassinations and bombings since the 1970s but has been relatively quiet in recent years. Compared to al Qaeda, it has not been seen as a strong terrorist threat. 
 
 Sanli's motives were still unclear. But some Turkish government officials have linked the attack to the arrest last month of dozens of suspected members of the group in a nationwide sweep. 
 
 Scroll down for video 
 
 Terrorist: Sanli, pictured, spent five years in prison on terrorism charges after he was arrested in 1997 for his alleged involvement in attacks on two official buildings in Istanbul 
 
 Speculation has also abounded that the bombing was related to the perceived support of the U.S. for Turkey's harsh criticism of the regime in Syria, whose brutal civil war has forced tens of thousands of Syrian refugees to seek shelter in Turkey. But Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has denied that. 
 
 Sanli was diagnosed with Wernicke-Korsakoff syndrome and released on probation in 2001, following the introduction of legislation that allowed hunger strikers with the disorder to get appropriate treatment. 
 
 
 
 The syndrome is a malnutrition-related brain illness that affects vision, muscle coordination and memory and that can cause hallucinations. 
 
 Sanli fled Turkey after his release and was wanted by Turkish authorities. He was convicted in absentia in 2002. 
 
 Half-staff: The U.S. flag at the embassy flies at half-staff a day after a suicide bomber attack, in Ankara, Turkey 
 
 Heightened security: Turkish security officers stand outside the US Embassy a day after Sanli targeted the building 
 
 On Saturday, a street in front of the security checkpoint where the explosion knocked a door off its hinges and littered the road with debris was blocked off. Police vehicles were parked in streets surrounding the building. 
 
 The guard who was killed was standing outside the checkpoint. The U.S. ambassador on Saturday attended his funeral in a town just outside of Ankara. A Turkish TV journalist was seriously wounded and two other guards had lighter wounds. 
 
 
 
 The White House was quick to declared the bomb attack on the U.S. Embassy in Ankara an 'act of terror' on Friday as Westerners in Turkey were warned to be vigilant. 
 
 
 
 Sanli detonated his stash of TNT outside the embassy in the Turkish capital at 1.15pm local time, killing a guard and himself. 
 
 
 
 Turkish officials blamed the attack on domestic leftists but U.S. officials were not immediately clear who was responsible. 
 
 
 
 Smoke: Two police officers arrive at gate two of the U.S. Embassy just minutes after Sanli detonated an explosive device Fire: Stills from an unverified online video purport to show the aftermath of the Ankara bombing 
 
 Injuries: A Turkish journalist, pictured, was seriously injured in the bombing Crews: Paramedics stretcher an injured person into a waiting ambulance after the blast 
 
 New Secretary of State, John Kerry, who was sworn in as Hillary Clinton's replacement on Friday, faced a tough introduction to the job as officials in Istanbul warned there could be further outrages. 
 
 Didem Tuncay, 38, a television journalist who was reportedly at the embassy to get a U.S. visa, was said to be 'seriously wounded' but not in a life-threatening condition. 
 
 T wo other guards sustained lighter wounds in the blast, Turkey's interior minister, Muammer Guler, told reporters. He said they 'were standing in a more protected area. 
 
 He also blamed the attack on a domestic left-wing militant group but did not explain why. 
 
 
 
 The group, DHKP-C, has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States but had been relatively quiet in recent years. The explosion occurred inside the security checkpoint at the side entrance to the U.S. embassy, which was being used by staff. 
 
 Aftermath: Medics carry an injured woman on a stretcher to an ambulance after the attack on the U.S. Embassy in the Turkish capital, Ankara 
 
 Emergency: Emergency personnel are seen in front of a side entrance of the U.S. Embassy in Ankara Victims: Crews take a victim of the blast to a waiting ambulance. Two were killed in the blast outside the U.S. embassy, local television reported 
 
 Scene: People stand outside the entrance of the US embassy in Ankara where the blast killed two security guards Police and ambulances swarmed the area and authorities immediately cordoned it off. TV footage showed the embassy door blown off its hinges. The windows of nearby businesses were also shattered by the power of the blast, and debris littered the ground and across the road. The inside of the embassy did not appear to be damaged. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attack demonstrated a need for international cooperation against terrorism and was aimed at disturbing Turkey's 'peace and prosperity.' 'But we will stand firm and we will overcome this together,' he said. In a statement, the U.S. Embassy thanked Turkey for 'its solidarity and outrage over the incident.' The embassy building is heavily protected and located near several other embassies in Ankara, including that of Germany and France. The Hurriyet newspaper said staff at the embassy took shelter in 'safe room' inside the compound soon after the explosion. Damage: Turkish police begin the search for clues at the scene of the blast Leftist group: Sanli belonged to the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C Aftermath: Phones were not being answered at the embassy 'We can confirm a terrorist blast at a check point on the perimeter of our embassy compound in Ankara, Turkey, at 1.13pm local time,' State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said in Washington. 'We are working closely with the Turkish national police to make a full assessment of the damage and the casualties, and to begin an investigation,' she said on Friday. 
 
 Turkish police were examining security cameras around the embassy. Forensics: Police forensic experts work on the site of a blast outside the US Embassy in Ankara Suicide: Turkish Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has confirmed the explosion was a suicide attack Security: Turkish police secure the area after an explosion in front of U.S. Embassy in Ankara U.S. diplomatic facilities in Turkey have been targeted previously by terrorists. In 2008, an attack blamed on al-Qaida-affiliated militants outside the U.S. Consulate in Istanbul left three assailants and three policemen dead. Elsewhere, terrorists attacked a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, on Sept. 11 last year, killing U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans. The attackers in Libya were suspected to have ties to Islamist extremists, and one is in custody in Egypt. 
 
 Checkpoint: The bomb exploded near the security checkpoint at the entrance of the visa section of the embassy 
 
 The blast went off in the Turkish capital Ankara (marked on map) Britain's Foreign Secretary William Hague condemned the attack 'in the strongest terms,' and said Turkey and the U.S. will get the U.K.'s full support as they seek to hold those responsible to account. Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, speaking to reporters during a visit to Belgrade, Serbia, said he was saddened that the attacked had occurred in Turkey. 'We have always shown great sensitivity to the protection of foreign missions and we will continue to do so,' he said. Homegrown Islamic militants tied to al-Qaeda have also carried out suicide bombings in Istanbul, Turkey's bustling commercial center. In a 2003 attack on the British consulate, a suspected Islamic militant rammed an explosive-laden pickup truck into the main gate, killing 58 people, including the British consul-general. Turkey is also being deeply affected by the brutal civil war in neighboring Syria, and has become a harsh critic of President Bashar Assad's regime there. The war has left at least 60,000 people dead so far, according to the U.N., and Turkey is sheltering tens of thousands of Syrian refugees. The first of six Patriot missile batteries being deployed to Turkey to protect the country against attack from Syria was just declared operational and placed under NATO command. Others are expected to become operational in the coming days. 
 
 VIDEO Chaotic scenes after suspected suicide bomber kills two in Turkey
– DNA tests confirm that Marxist revolutionary Ecevit Sanli perpetrated the bombing attack at a US embassy in Ankara, Turkish officials said today. Sanli killed himself and a guard in the attack. A member of the Revolutionary People's Liberation Army-Front, Sanli served five years for his role in attacking two official buildings in 1997 but was released with a brain disorder after taking part in a hunger strike, the Daily Mail reports. He fled the country in 2003 and re-entered Turkey using false documents. An image of Sanli wearing an explosives belt and black beret appeared on the Army-Front's website beside the message, "Murderer America! You will not run away from people's rage." The site took responsibility for the embassy attack and warned that Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan is also a target, Reuters reports. The group wants Washington to remove Patriot missiles from Turkey before they become operational on Monday. Turkey accepted the missiles as part of a NATO plan to defend Turkey against spillover from Syria's civil war.