Despite the president’s assertion ISIS is responsible, yesterday Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim appeared to contradict those claims, saying it was “too early” to tell who masterminded the attack.
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Reports said more than half of the victims are below the age of 14.
Turkish authorities were on Monday (Aug 22) scrambling to identify a child suicide bomber acting on the orders of Islamic State (IS) militants who killed 54 people at a crowded Kurdish wedding close to the Syrian border.
Turkey blames IS for a bomb attack that killed dozens of people in the south of the country at the weekend. He said the earlier assertion that the attacker was child was a “guess” based on witness accounts.
Meanwhile, Turkish officials said that they found a destroyed suicide vest at the bombing site.
One mother, Emine Ayhan, lost four of her five children in the bombing while her husband is in intensive care, the Yeni Safak daily said.
ISIS has lured children “through a variety of tricks and treats, the way pedophiles lure in young kids”, she said.
Turkey is becoming ever more embroiled in the Syrian civil war and officials have warned it could be the target of more deadly bombings.
The leader of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) Selahattin Demirtas said in a statement that “all of those killed were Kurds”. The groom was among those injured, but the bride was not hurt.
The latter attack, targeting a peace rally near the capital’s central railway station, claimed more than 100 lives, making it the deadliest terror attack in modern Turkish history.
Relations between the government and Turkey’s Kurdish minority have been strained as a result of a decades-long Kurdish insurgency.
On 29 June, 41 people were killed in a gun and bomb attack by Isis militants at Istanbul Ataturk Airport, while 37 victims died in a suicide vehicle bombing by Kurdish separatists in Ankara in March.
In a sign of a key battle to come, Syrian rebel fighters have amassed on the Turkish side of the border in preparation for an offensive on the town of Jarablus, ISIS’ last major transit point on the Syrian side of the border.
ISIS is believed to have extensive cells throughout Turkey.
The deadly attack also came amid struggles between the government and Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, known as the PKK, and as the country is still reeling from the aftermath of last month’s failed coup attempt, which the government has blamed on US -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his followers.
The Turkish government blamed the PKK, which has typically targeted police and the military, whereas ISIS tends to launch mass casualty attacks on soft, civilian targets.
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Syrian state media says a cease-fire between government and Kurdish forces in Hasakeh has gone into effect, six days after fierce clashes erupted between the two sides over control of the northern Syrian city.
