The increasing signals of possible Islamic State links to Saturday’s bloodshed – which killed almost 100 people – has raised pressure on Turkey’s government before elections November. 1 with critics demanding more steps to keep Syria’s civil war from spilling over into Turkey.
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Turkey’s prime minister asserted Monday in that the Islamic State terror group (ISIS) was suspected of carrying out Saturday’s double suicide bombing at a peace demonstration in Ankara in that killed at least 97 people.
The official death toll is 97, but one of the main groups at the march put the number of dead at 128.
“Identification efforts continue on the bodies of two male terrorists who were ascertained to be suicide bombers”, the office said in a statement.
“We are close to identifying one of the bombers”, he told NTV television, adding that this would help name the organization behind the attacks.
A few members of the largely Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or HDP, which stunned Turkey by winning enough seats in parliament in the June elections to stymie Erdogan’s ambitions, have gone so far as to accuse the Turkish president of failing to prevent the massacre.
The Queen has sent a letter to the Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan saying she was “shocked and saddened”. Turkish police and soldiers are killed in attacks blamed on the PKK. The Turkish military has been conducting offensives against alleged positions of the Daesh Takfiri terrorists in northern Syria as well as those of the the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq and southeastern Turkey.
“Postponing the elections as a result of the attack is not on the table at all, even as an option”, said a government source.
On Sunday, police detained four more suspected Isis militants in a raid in the southern city of Adana. That suicide bombing in Suruc is also linked to Islamic extremists.
Declaring three days of mourning, Davutoglu said there were “strong signs” the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers. The Turkish news agency Anadolu reported 49 PKK members were killed in airstrikes over the weekend.
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The rally was organised by several unions, civic society organisations and pro-Kurdish People’s Democracy Party (HDP) to demand an end to the violence between the Kurdish separatist PKK militants and the Turkish government.
