Turkish authorities are saying that a boy between the ages of 12 and 14 carried out a devastating suicide bomb attack on a wedding party that killed at least 50 people and wounded nearly 100.
Advertisement
Pope Francis offered prayers for the attack ” s victims, according to official Vatican Radio. Erdoğan described the attack in Southeastern Turkey as a barbaric event.
Seventy-three people are undergoing treatment for injuries sustained in the attack, including 17 people in critical condition, Health Minister Recep Akdag said Sunday, according to Turkey’s state-run Anadolu news agency.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking live on national television in front of Istanbul’s city hall, said the attacker was aged between 12 and 14. “When we went back to see what had happened, everyone was on the floor, and there were body parts scattered everywhere and blood splattered on the walls”. It is the deadliest extremist attack of 2016.
For our NewsCast unit, NPR’s Peter Kenyon reports that, while no one has immediately claimed responsibility, authorities believe it to be the work of one group in particular.
A Turkish official said that the wedding “took place in the open air” and in a central area of Gaziantep with a high Kurdish concentration, reinforcing speculation on a jihadist attack.
Turkey’s Erdogan blames child bomber for attack that killed 51 was posted in World of TheNews International – https://www.thenews.com.pk on August 21, 2016 and was last updated on August 21, 2016.
The explosion was the latest attack to rock the key North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member in a horrific year that has seen strikes blamed on Kurdish and Islamist militants as well as a bloody July 15 botched coup.
Erdogan said there was “absolutely no difference” between IS, Kurdish rebels and the movement of USA -based cleric Fethullah Gulen, calling them terrorist groups.
Around a dozen people were killed this week in a string of bombings blamed on the PKK, and targeting police and soldiers. At least 11 people were killed, and hundreds injured, in those attacks.
According to the news agency Dogan, the bomber mingled with guests before operating his office.
Islamic State is also fighting US -backed Syrian Kurdish rebels, who have taken ground from the hardline group.
“We condemn and curse the ones who launched this attack, and the forces and ideology behind their actions”, HDP, the third largest party in parliament, said in a statement.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said the wedding party was for one of its members.
Advertisement
Erdogan ruled that the perpetrators of the attack aimed to sow division between different ethnic groups in Turkey. The country faces security threats from IS in Syria, as well as from local Kurdish fighters linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). In some indictments, it was revealed that the ones launching the attack on October 10th, 2015, in Ankara had also been planning to attack a Kurdish wedding.
