Today US citizens received a warning from the US Embassy in Turkey about possible terrorist attacks in Istanbul and Antalya.
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“The US Mission in Turkey would like to inform US citizens that there are credible threats to tourist areas, in particular to public squares and docks in Istanbul and Antalya”, it said.
The incident comes with Turkey’s largest city on edge after a spate of deadly attacks in the country this year blamed on Kurdish militants and jihadists.
On March 13, at least 37 people were killed and over 125 were wounded at a bus stop near a central square in Ankara and on March 19, five people including the attacker were killed and at least 36 were injured in blast at a major tourist street in Istanbul.
The bureau, under the direct auspices of the Prime Minister’s Office, at that time issued a statement saying that the existing travel warning has been upgraded from a Level 3 warning of a basic concrete threat, to a Level 2 warning of a high concrete threat.
Friday evening, the Israeli Counter Terrorism Bureau warned Israelis to leave Turkey immediately, and now the United States is warning its citizens to take “extreme caution”.
The state-run Anatolia news agency reported Turkish tour operators would focus their attention on Ukraine instead of Russian Federation, with Turkey hoping to attract one million visitors from its Black Sea neighbour to compensate for losses elsewhere.
Tourism is a mainstay of the Turkish economy and the blow to the sector is especially hard ahead of the crucial summer season.
Tens of thousands of Israelis visit nearby Turkey each year despite strained diplomatic relations between the two countries.
Turkey said the bomber had links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group, and on Tuesday Israel’s defence ministry said he had most probably targeted the Israelis deliberately.
“The end of this crippled logic is that you don’t see the Brussels and Paris attacks – and god forbid any attacks in London – as terror attacks”.
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“They are appendages of the same body…”
