A senior rebel official said Turkish-backed Syrian rebels were preparing to launch an attack to seize Jarablus from Islamic State, a move that would deny control to advancing Syrian Kurdish fighters.
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Turkey is determined to fight Islamic State group extremists inside Turkey and in Syria, the Turkish foreign minister said Monday, after a suicide bomber attacked a Kurdish wedding party, killing at least 54 people, many of them children.
Relatives of Kumri Ilter, one of the victims of Saturday’s suicide bombing at a wedding, mourn during her funeral ceremony in southeastern city of Gaziantep, Turkey, August 22, 2016.
The attack followed a string of strikes blamed on IS and Kurdish militants in the last months but was the deadliest so far this year and first significant jihadist action in Turkey since the failed July 15 coup.
Çavuşoğlu said Turkey, a member of North Atlantic Treaty Organisation and the US-led coalition against Islamic State, had become the “No 1 target” for the militants because of its work to prevent recruits from travelling through its territory and across the border into Syria.
Authorities were trying to identify the child attacker, who President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said was aged between 12 and 14.
The deadly attack also came amid ongoing struggles between the government and Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, and as the country was still reeling from the aftermath of last month’s failed coup attempt, which the government has blamed on a USA -based Muslim cleric, Fethullah Gulen, and his followers.
Mia Bloom, a Georgia State University professor who is an expert on child soldiers and terrorism, said ISIS made wide use of children in conflict, typically employing them as bombers or snipers, either attached to adult fighting units or operating on their own.
The death toll rose to 54 after three more died in hospital in the early morning, the Dogan news agency reported.
Officials said more than half the victims in the attack on Gaziantep were under the age of 18.
Both the Ankara and Suruc attacks were blamed on ISIL, reinforcing the suspicion that the armed group was also behind the Gaziantep bombing, the official said.
Some in Turkey, particularly in the Kurdish south-east, feel the government has not done enough to protect its citizens from Islamic State.
ISIS has lured children “through a variety of tricks and treats, the way pedophiles lure in young kids”, she said. Clashes between the militants and government forces have flared after a fragile two-and-a-half year peace process collapsed last year.
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The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party said in a statement condemning the blast that the wedding was for one of its members.
