Authorities were trying to identify the child attacker, who President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said was aged between 12 and 14. Here & Now’s Meghna Chakrabarti speaks with Gonul Tol, an expert on Turkish politics. Fourteen of the wounded are said to be critically injured.
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Turkey seeks to “cleanse” the country’s Syrian border area of ISIS militants after a wedding bombing that killed at least 51 people.
On Monday, Turkey’s military launched howitzer attacks on Islamic State while artillery pounded Kurdish YPG militants in Syria, whom Ankara sees as an extension of its own Kurdish insurgency.
People carry a victim’s coffin as they attend funeral services for dozens of people killed in last night’s bomb attack targeting an outdoor wedding party in Gaziantep, southeastern Turkey, Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016.
Kurdish fighters, backed by the US-led coalition, have been at the forefront of the fight against IS in Syria.
Hurriyet said the type of bomb used – stuffed with 2-3 centimetre shards of iron and detonated with C-4 explosives – was similar to that used in previous suicide bombings against pro-Kurdish gatherings blamed on IS in the border town of Suruc and at Ankara train station a year ago.
The statement also said the Gaziantep attack “targets those determined and consistent in peace. and those struggling for democracy, equality and freedom”.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party said that all of the people killed were Kurds.
“Initial findings of the governor and our police forces indicate the attack has been perpetrated by Daesh”, Erdogan said, using an Arabic term for the Islamic extremist group.
Cavusoglu said Turkey had become the “number one target” for the militants because of its work to stop recruits travelling through Turkey across its over 800 km (500 mile) border into Syria to join the Sunni hardline group. The newspaper indicates that surveillance cameras in the city detected the attacker being escorted by two people, who left before the detonation.
The bride and groom are believed to have survived the attack, NPR’s Peter Kenyon reports. Russian President Vladimir Putin expressed his condolences; Russia and Turkey have had a tense relationship for the past few months, but have recently indicated a willingness to mend fences.
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On Sunday, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon condemned the deadly attack in a statement and voiced his hope that “the perpetrators of this act will be quickly identified and brought to justice”.
