STRINGER/REUTERS Police forensic experts inspect the area after a suicide bombing occured in a major shopping and tourist district in central Istanbul, Turkey, March 19, 2016.
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“The football match was postponed in light of serious information” pointing to the risk of an attack, the local governor’s office said in a statement less than two hours before kick-off. “It has been established that he is a member of Daesh”, Mr Ala told a news conference broadcast live on television, reported news agency Reuters. Israel has warned its citizens against travel to Turkey, upgrading its threat level from a potential threat of attacks in the country to a concrete threat of attacks.
The attack appeared similar to a suicide bombing in Istanbul in January, also blamed on ISIL, which killed several German tourists.
Interior Minister Efkan Ala on Sunday identified the Istanbul bomber as a man born in 1992 and from the southern province of Gaziantep near the Syrian border, adding that five people had been detained so far in connection with the blast.
Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif, who was in Istanbul at the time of the attack, condemned the terrorist act and offered condolences to the Turkish government and nation.
Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu, for his part, condemned the bombing at a Sunday press briefing. The country faces a wide array of security threats including from ultra-left radicals, Kurdish rebels demanding greater autonomy who now are locked in battle with security forces in the southeast, and IS.
Turkey named the alleged perpetrator of the attack as Mehmet Öztürk, a suspected Islamic State member. The little-known group is thought to be an offshoot of the PKK, or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a group designated as a terrorist organization by Turkey and the United States.
Ala said Turkey is determined to pursue its fight against Islamic State jihadists, but admitted it was hard to prevent suicide bombings.
Suspicion in the bombing had also fallen on Kurdish separatists who are waging a war in southeastern Turkey.
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The reports published Monday run counter to those of intelligence assessments that said the Israelis were not deliberately targeted. A suicide attack on Istanbul’s main pedestrian shopping street Saturday killed a number of people, including two dual…
