Kobane had recently been secured by Syrian Kurdish fighters last month following an unsuccessful attack by militants from Islamic State (IS) who surrounded the town but were repelled by Kurdish forces and Free Syrian Army rebels.
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July 20, 2015 A haze fills the air after an explosion in the town of Suruc, not far from the Syrian border.
Speaking by phone, her voice shaking, she said the group had believed Kobani was relatively safe and ready to rebuild.
“What gives us pause about this attack is that while the others were haphazard and sloppy… the size of this explosion suggests something more sophisticated”, said Aaron Stein, an Atlantic Council fellow who specialises on Turkey and Syria.
Late Friday, the Islamic State carried out a massive auto bombing in a busy market in Iraq that killed 126 adults and children celebrating the end of the holy month of Ramadan.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who was in Cyprus on an official visit, was briefed on the investigation, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency. “Such despicable terrorist attacks on #Turkey’s integrity and peace will never reach their goal”, he said. “We express our solidarity with the Turkish government and the Turkish people and reaffirm our undeterred resolve to the fight against the shared threat of terrorism”.
Pervin Buldan, a senior lawmaker from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish HDP opposition party, said local officials were investigating the possibility that the explosion was a suicide bombing.
In recent weeks, Turkish authorities have stepped up their actions against the jihadists, arresting dozens of suspected Daesh militants and sympathisers.
Sources in Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu’s office said he had ordered Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus, as well as the interior and labour ministers, to go to Suruc. He spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak on the record.
Across the border in Kobane, two people were killed in a auto bombing near a checkpoint of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Kurdish official Idriss Nassan said.
“Daesh threatens not only Syrian people but also Turkey“, he added. Many were killed – 20 or 30.
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The town is home to one of the biggest refugee camps for Syrians and played a major role in crossings of Kurdish refugees from towns in Syria to Turkey.
