ISTANBUL, Sept 22 — A gunman opened fire outside a high school in western Turkey on Tuesday, wounding eight people, before being detained by police, local officials said.

The incident happened around 8am (0500 GMT) in Turgutlu in the province of Manisa, near the western resort city of Izmir, the regional governor’s office said.

School shootings are rare in Turkey, although there were two attacks in April on consecutive days in southern Turkey that sparked widespread anger.

Several media outlets including IHA news agency and NTV private television said students were among the injured, with police and rescuers rushing to the scene.

DHA news agency broadcast CCTV footage of the alleged attacker, a young man wearing black jeans, a black jacket and a green top walking along a street holding what appeared to be a rifle.

IHA had a similar image of what appeared to be the same person with a gun, although this time running.

Footage from outside the school showed police wrestling a man in a white shirt to the ground before leading him away, as a woman screamed, with onlookers pressed against the school fence, filming with their mobile phones.

Authorities have opened an investigation into the incident, the governor’s office said.

School safety 

The attack came five months after two back-to-back school shootings that raised public concerns about security in Turkish schools.

In April, a 14-year-old opened fire at a school in the southern province of Kahramanmaras, killing a teacher and nine students aged 10 and 11. The attacker died at the scene.

A day earlier, another teenager opened fire at his former high school in the southeastern province of Sanliurfa, wounding 16 people before taking his own life when confronted by police.

Following the two attacks, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dismissed a deputy education minister and pledged his government would introduce tighter controls on gun ownership.

He vowed school safety would be one of the government’s top priorities.

“When we look at similar attacks around the world, especially in the United States, we see one of the perpetrators’ aims is to terrorise society,” he said.

New security measures 

The attack came a day after Education Minister Yusuf Tekin and Interior Minister Mustafa Ciftci signed a protocol setting out security measures for the 2026-2027 academic year, which began on September 14.

Ciftci said authorities had strengthened school security following the April shootings.

“To ensure such pain is never experienced again, I would like to remind everyone that we must be extremely vigilant this year,” he said.

He said 31,000 school grounds supervisors had been deployed for the first time.

The interior ministry also carried out a fresh security assessment of schools and assigned police officers to first- and second-degree risk schools, where they remain on permanent duty, he said.

Schools classified as lower risk are assigned police liaison officers who work in coordination with school administrations.

Police charged with monitoring security, public order, narcotics and juvenile issues would conduct regular patrols around schools, he said.

Authorities would also inspect school buses and review abandoned buildings near schools under the new measures. — AFP