A Libyan gunman wounded two security guards yesterday at one of Istanbul’s top tourist attractions before being killed by police after an hour-long shootout, authorities and local media said.

The man entered the Topkapi Palace on the banks of the Bosphorus Strait and began firing in all directions with a pump action shotgun, NTV television quoted Istanbul police chief Huseyin Capkin as saying.

“With his weapon he began to fire everywhere,” he said.

Police rushed to the scene and exchanged fire with the man, who had also taken the weapons of the wounded guards and shut himself inside a room of the sprawling palace, before shooting him dead, Mr Capkin added.

“The operation neutralised the aggressor,” he said.

Interior Minister Idris Naim Sahin told reporters the man was using a car registered in neighbouring Syria, whose relations with Turkey have slumped in recent months.

“It had a Syrian registration plate. It belongs to someone else, but the links are not very clear,” Mr Sahin said. He said that despite the registration, the man was a Libyan national, born in 1975, who had entered the country on Sunday.