A suspected Islamic State suicide bomber on Monday killed at least 31 people in an attack on a Turkish cultural center where activists had gathered to prepare for an aid mission to the nearby Syrian town of Kobane.
The blast ripped through the center in Suruc — a town just across the border from Kobane, which was later hit by a suicide car bombing — blowing out the windows and starting a fire, witnesses said.
Most of the dead were university students who were planning to enter Syria to help rebuild Kobane, which was occupied by the Islamic State for months before being recaptured by Kurdish forces in January. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, on a visit to northern Cyprus, condemned the attack as an “act of terror.”
Photo: AFP
“On behalf of my people, I curse and condemn the perpetrators of this brutality,” he said. “Terror must be condemned no matter where it comes from.”
TV footage showed several people lying on the ground covered in blood and ambulances rushing to the scene. Journalists’ pictures showed bodies covered in blankets lain out in the center’s garden.
Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu blamed the Islamic State for what was “clearly a terrorist attack.”
“Preliminary findings point to it being a suicide attack carried out by DAESH,” Davutoglu said in Ankara, using an Arabic acronym for the extremist group. “But we are not at a point to make a final judgement.”
If confirmed, it would be the first such attack by Islamic State fighters against Turkey, a regional military power and NATO member.
Local resident Mehmet Celik told reporters the town was “in chaos.”
The pro-Kurdish HDP part’s Alp Altinors said the group of about 300 activists who gathered in Suruc from across the country were from the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations and that most were students.
Social media images showed the group relaxing over breakfast in the garden a few hours before the noon blast.
A video circulated by the private Dogan news agency showed a spokesman for the activists saying into a microphone: “We, the youth, are here. We have defended Kobane together and now we are setting out to rebuild it together.”
Davutoglu said the blast aimed to undermine Turkish democracy.
“This attack targets us all,” he said, dispatching three ministers to the southeastern region.
“DAESH threatens not only Syrian people, but also Turkey,” he added.
White House spokesman Josh Earnest condemned the “heinous” attack, as did Russian President Vladimir Putin, who labeled it a “barbaric act” and called for greater international cooperation in fighting terrorism.
French Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development Laurent Fabius also joined in the condemnation.
The attack in Suruc was followed closely afterwards by a suicide car bombing at a checkpoint in Kobane, which killed two members of the Kurdish security forces, according to Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.
Kobane has been a symbol of resistance against the extremists since Islamic State fighters were driven out by Syrian Kurdish forces backed by US-led airstrikes.
Turkey’s Kurds were frustrated at the time by Ankara’s refusal to intervene to rout the insurgents, who have seized large parts of Syria and Iraq over the past year. Ankara’s critics accused it of tolerating or even aiding the militants, as a useful ally against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, whom Erdogan wants ousted — allegations vehemently rejected by Ankara.
In recent weeks, Turkish authorities have stepped up their actions against the extremists, arresting dozens of suspected militants and sympathizers.
Ankara categorizes the Islamic State as a terrorist group, but has been a reluctant member of the US-led coalition fighting the group, refusing to give its NATO ally the use of Incirlik Air Base in the south for raids on the extremists.
A fire caused by a burst gas pipe yesterday spread to several homes and sent a fireball soaring into the sky outside Malaysia’s largest city, injuring more than 100 people. The towering inferno near a gas station in Putra Heights outside Kuala Lumpur was visible for kilometers and lasted for several hours. It happened during a public holiday as Muslims, who are the majority in Malaysia, celebrate the second day of Eid al-Fitr. National oil company Petronas said the fire started at one of its gas pipelines at 8:10am and the affected pipeline was later isolated. Disaster management officials said shutting the
US Vice President J.D. Vance on Friday accused Denmark of not having done enough to protect Greenland, when he visited the strategically placed and resource-rich Danish territory coveted by US President Donald Trump. Vance made his comment during a trip to the Pituffik Space Base in northwestern Greenland, a visit viewed by Copenhagen and Nuuk as a provocation. “Our message to Denmark is very simple: You have not done a good job by the people of Greenland,” Vance told a news conference. “You have under-invested in the people of Greenland, and you have under-invested in the security architecture of this
UNREST: The authorities in Turkey arrested 13 Turkish journalists in five days, deported a BBC correspondent and on Thursday arrested a reporter from Sweden Waving flags and chanting slogans, many hundreds of thousands of anti-government demonstrators on Saturday rallied in Istanbul, Turkey, in defence of democracy after the arrest of Istanbul Mayor Ekrem Imamoglu which sparked Turkey’s worst street unrest in more than a decade. Under a cloudless blue sky, vast crowds gathered in Maltepe on the Asian side of Turkey’s biggest city on the eve of the Eid al-Fitr celebration which started yesterday, marking the end of Ramadan. Ozgur Ozel, chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), which organized the rally, said there were 2.2 million people in the crowd, but
JOINT EFFORTS: The three countries have been strengthening an alliance and pressing efforts to bolster deterrence against Beijing’s assertiveness in the South China Sea The US, Japan and the Philippines on Friday staged joint naval drills to boost crisis readiness off a disputed South China Sea shoal as a Chinese military ship kept watch from a distance. The Chinese frigate attempted to get closer to the waters, where the warships and aircraft from the three allied countries were undertaking maneuvers off the Scarborough Shoal — also known as Huangyan Island (黃岩島) and claimed by Taiwan and China — in an unsettling moment but it was warned by a Philippine frigate by radio and kept away. “There was a time when they attempted to maneuver
RSS