Party Convoy in Turkey Is Fired on, Killing Officer

The attack came after Mr. Erdogan had left the convoy. It was unclear whether he had been the intended target.

Less than an hour earlier, he had addressed a rally in Kastamonu, a city near the Black Sea about 150 miles north of Ankara.

At the time of the attack, Mr. Erdogan was in the nearby town of Amasya for another campaign event, said the governor of Kastamonu Province, Erdogan Bektas. The prime minister then left the area by helicopter, Mr. Bektas said.

In remarks delivered in Amasya, Mr. Erdogan condemned the political violence and appeared to allude to a separatist motive for the attack, though he stopped short of naming any group. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack.

“Call them whatever you want, these terrorists, these separatist powers, those who realize that they cannot handle their business at ballot boxes, think that they can achieve results only this way,” the Anatolian News Agency reported Mr. Erdogan as saying.

Since the 1980s, the Turkish government and armed Kurdish separatists known as the P.K.K. have engaged in a protracted struggle that has claimed more than 40,000 lives.

“Nobody should seek for alternate ways except the ballot box,” Mr. Erdogan said.

Turkey is heading for parliamentary elections in June with Mr. Erdogan’s pro-Islamic Justice and Development Party, buoyed by a robust economy, expected to win a third term as the majority government.

The attackers aimed at police vehicles escorting the prime minister’s election bus, which carried officials from Mr. Erdogan’s party, the NTV television network reported. A large number of ambulances were sent to the area.

Gunfire caused one of the police vehicles to explode, Mr. Bektas said. Earlier news reports, citing witnesses, had indicated grenades were used in the attack.

 

Laser gun fired from US navy ship

 11 April 2011 Last updated at 07:47 ET A high-energy laser (HEL) fired from a US warship off the California coast has ignited a nearby boat. Video courtesy of the US Office of Naval Research.

The US Navy has fired a laser gun from one of its ships for the first time.

Researchers used the high-energy laser (HEL) to disable a boat by setting fire to its engines off the coast of California.

Similar systems had previously been tested on land, however moist sea air presented an extra challenge as it reduces a beam's power.

The navy said that ship-borne lasers could eventually be used to protect vessels from small attack boats.

The US military has been experimenting with laser weapons since the 1970s.

Early systems used large, chemical-based lasers which tended to produce dangerous waste gasses.

More recently, scientists have developed solid state lasers that combine large numbers of compact beam generators, similar to LEDs.

HELs fire The US Navy system uses a Joint High Power Solid State Laser mounted on deck

Until now, much of the development of HELs has focused on shooting down missiles or hitting land-based targets.

The latest round of tests showed its wider possibilities, according to Peter Morrison from the Office of Naval Research.

"This test provides an important data point as we move toward putting directed energy on warships.

"There is still much work to do to make sure it's done safely and efficiently," he said.

While a weaponised system would likely be restricted to military vessels, merchant shipping has also expressed an interest in laser technogy,

A gun which uses visible laser light to temporarily blind pirates was announced by BAE Systems in 2010.

The technology is still being tested, ahead of a commercial launch.