JNN 02 Feb ANKARA, Turkey — In the second deadly assault on a U.S. diplomatic post in five months, a suicide bomber struck the American Embassy in Ankara on Friday, killing at least two people and wounded several others , a Turkish security guard and a US Embassy Staff was Killed in what the White House described as a terrorist attack.

Washington immediately warned Americans to stay away from all U.S. diplomatic facilities in Turkey and to be wary in large crowds.

Turkish officials said the bombing was linked to leftist domestic militants.

“A suicide bombing on the perimeter of an embassy is by definition an act of terror,” he said. “It is a terrorist attack.”

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said police believe the bomber was connected to a domestic leftist militant group. Carney, however, said the motive for the attack and who was behind it was not known.

“We strongly condemn what was a suicide attack against our embassy in Ankara, which took place at the embassy’s outer security perimeter,” said White House spokesman Jay Carney.

A Turkish TV journalist was seriously wounded in the 1:15 p.m. blast in the Turkish capital, and two other guards had lighter wounds, officials said.

At least three people, including a woman, were also wounded. Ankara has confirmed that a Turkish citizen detonated his explosives outside the embassy’s visa section.

Interior Minister Muammer Guler says the bomber, who was also killed in the blast, belonged to a leftist group.

The explosion caused damage to the checkpoint, but there was no damage inside the embassy.

The force of the blast also damaged nearby buildings in the Cankaya neighborhood, where many other state institutions and embassies are located.

The state-run Anadolu Agency identified the bomber as Ecevit Sanli. It said the 40-year-old Turkish man was a member of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front, or DHKP-C, which has claimed responsibility for assassinations and bombings since the 1970s.

The group has been designated a terrorist organization by the United States but had been relatively quiet in recent years.

Hillary Rodham Clinton, in her farewell speech to State Department staff moments after she formally resigned as secretary of state, said “we were attacked and lost one of our foreign service nationals.”

Sen. John Kerry, the incoming secretary of state, also was briefed.

The U.S. Embassy building in Ankara is heavily protected and located near several other embassies, including those of Germany and France.

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.

On Sept. 11, 2012, terrorists attacked a U.S. mission in Benghazi, Libya, 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.

Friday’s bombing occurred at a security checkpoint at the side entrance to the U.S. Embassy, which is used by staff.

State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said a man detonated a suicide vest at the checkpoint on the outer perimeter of the embassy compound.

“He came to this first point of access to the compound … where you have to have your ID checked, you have to go through security,” Nuland said.