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SE Turkey sees rise in terror attacks. Police officer killed

Officials said the suicide bomber had been identified as a 20-year old Turkish student who had been in contact with IS jihadists for several months. Thirty-two people died and more than 100 were wounded in the attack.

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There have already been protests in Istanbul and other cities over the bombing in the town of Suruc, with demonstrators saying the government is to blame for the attack. Twitter had removed less than half of them before the country blocked it.

A Turkish government official said access to Twitter was restored after the company “removed malicious content, including hate speech, in line with the court order”. The officials, speaking on condition of anonymity, declined to disclose specifics.

Local media reported that Turkey’s Interior Ministry had sent 20 million Lira (£4.7 million) to the border towns to start work on the project. The government blocked Twitter and YouTube earlier this year during a hostage crisis in an Istanbul courthouse.

Turkish demands to remove events’ coverage on major social networks to manipulate media exceed even that of Russian Federation.

A senior government official told Reuters on Wednesday that the suspect in the bombing was a 20-year old ethnic Kurd from the town of Adiyaman who had illegally travelled to Syria previous year.

No one has claimed responsibility for Monday’s suicide bombing, although Turkish officials say they have strong reasons to believe it was perpetrated by Islamic State militants. Eight months ago, after fierce fighting in early October in southeastern Turkey due to a lack of Turkish government support for the Kurdish battle in Kobane against ISIS, the teahouse was shut down, officially due to a lack of a permit.

Adding to tensions in Turkey, two police officers were shot dead in Sanliurfa province, which encompasses Suruç.

The authorities did not reveal the name of the suspect, but they hinted a high probability the attack was planned by the Islamic State (IS) group.

Turkey officially classifies the PKK and ISIS as a terrorist organizations.

But there could be an alternative explanation to this attack, Abrahms said.

Turkey plans to take yet another turn by flying zeppelins and building a two-fenced border system with a new moat as part of its efforts to beef up its border security with Syria, after accusations from the global community of not doing its best to stem the flow of foreign fighters from Turkey to its neighbor. The number arrested was not immediately clear. The deaths came as Turkish police detained at least 11 people overnight as anti-government protests turned violent in Istanbul and other cities.

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“We are committed to eliminating the national security threat”, the official said.

A pair of shoes belonging to a victim are seen next to flowers laid down by mourners at the site of Monday's explosion in the Turkish town of Suruc near the Syrian border Tuesday