Turkey on Wednesday sacked Ankara’s top police chief and two other officials as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted security shortcomings over a double suicide bombing in the capital that killed 99.
There has been growing anger against Erdogan and the Turkish government for alleged security lapses over the worst attack in modern Turkey’s history, in which two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of peace protesters on Saturday last week.
Announcing the first dismissals in the wake of the disaster, the Turkish Ministry of the Interior said Ankara police chief Kadri Kartal, as well as the heads of the city’s police intelligence and security departments had been removed from their posts.
It said they had been sacked on the suggestion of investigators “to allow for a healthy investigation” into the atrocity.
In his first public remarks on the bombings, Erdogan on Tuesday said there were security shortcomings and ordered the Turkish State Supervisory Council, an inspection body attached to the presidency, to undertake a special investigation.
On Wednesday, Erdogan made his first visit to the site of the bombings outside Ankara’s main railway station, laying flowers.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu announced that the toll from the bombings had risen from 97 to 99 dead, and that one Palestinian man was among those killed.
“Ninety-four corpses have been returned to the families and four corpses are to be given to families who have been informed,” Davutoglu told Show TV in an interview.
The attack has raised political tensions to new highs as Turkey prepares for a snap election on Nov. 1, with polarization within the nation now greater than ever.
The bombing targeted thousands of people gathering for a peace rally called by labor unions, leftist groups and pro-Kurdish activists over the government’s offensive against Kurdish militants.
In protests held since the bloodshed, demonstrators have held up banners reading: “killer Erdogan” and “we know the killer!” although the authorities have angrily ridiculed claims of state complicity.
The government has said the Islamic State group is the prime suspect behind the bombings, which wounded more than 500 people.
Erdogan has said the attack had its roots in Syria, where Islamic State militants have captured swathes of territory up to the Turkish border.
There have been growing indications that the authorities are focusing on possible parallels or even links to a July 20 suicide bombing at a peace rally in Suruc, on the Syrian border — also blamed on the Islamic State — which killed 34 people.
The Hurriyet daily said the authorities now believe one of the Ankara suicide bombers was Yunus Emre Alagoz, brother of the Suruc bomber Abdurrahman Alagoz.
The other is believed to be Omer Deniz Dundar, who had twice been to Syria since 2013, it said, adding that both had arrived in Ankara in two cars from the southeastern city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border.
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