In a report earlier this year, UNICEF said one in five suicide attacks claimed by the militant group across Nigeria, Cameroon and Chad are now carried out by children.
Advertisement
The suicide bomb attack at a wedding party in Turkey in which at least 54 people were killed might not have been carried out by a child, Turkish authorities have admitted.
Speaking after a Cabinet meeting on Monday, Premier Binali Yildirim said “a clue hasn’t yet been found concerning the perpetrator of the attack”.
Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus President Mustafa Akinci sent a condolence letter to President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, expressing solidarity with the Turkish people.
More than half of at least 54 persons killed in an attack on a Kurdish wedding party in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep were children, Turkish officials indicated on Monday. The official couldn’t be named in line with Turkish government rules.
However, western states say Ankara has begun to move strongly against the group and seal its borders to extremist traffic after the attacks blamed on ISIL on its soil this year.
The Sri Lankan government on Monday condemned an terror attack in Turkey, which left over 51 dead and hundreds more injured. The attack on Saturday in Gaziantep is proof that while Syria bleeds profusely, the spillover into Turkey is very real and seems to be largely uncontainable.
A senior security official told Reuters the device used was the same type as those employed in the July 2015 suicide attack in the border town of Suruc and the October 2015 suicide bombing of a rally.
Most of the victims of the bombing were children, media reports say.
“If this was an attack by so-called Islamic State, it could be a response to the jihadists’ recent loss of territory in Syria”, writes BBC. He said Turkey has already taken an “active” role in the fight against ISIS, allowing coalition forces to use a key air base.
According to the list of victims in Turkish media, the youngest – named as Gurbet Akcan and Muhammet Yagiz – were both aged four.
“Our border must be completely cleansed from Daesh”, foreign minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said.
The wedding party would have been a tempting target: The bride and groom both came from well-known Kurdish families affiliated with a pro-Kurdish political party, the People’s Democratic Party, and Gaziantep is a known haven for Islamic State sleeper cells. “Perhaps this attack on a Kurdish wedding in Gaziantep was an act of revenge”.
One of the wedding guests, Nursel Saglam, was on a rooftop overlooking the outdoor celebrations when the bomb went off.
Shops closed in respect for the victims on the main street which leads to the side street where the attack occurred.
Advertisement
“I can not recount what I saw”, said Ilter, who lost five young cousins. “If my remaining child was not alive, I would commit suicide”, she told Turkish television.
