Child bombers who are coerced often deliberately fail to launch their attacks, as the teen in Kirkuk may have done, she said.
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In the past year, Turkey has suffered a series of extremist attacks by Kurdish militants and radical Islamists, the deadliest being a double bombing on a peace rally in Ankara and a triple suicide bombing at Istanbul’s Ataturk airport.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed the attack on the Islamic State which, he said, “is trying to position and organize itself in Gaziantep”.
A family member of a victim of a suicide bombing at a wedding celebration mourn over a coffin during a funeral ceremony in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, Turkey, August 21, 2016.
Turkey’s military fired on Syrian Kurdish targets 20 times with artillery at Manbij in northern Syria, a Turkish official said, adding that the military was continuing to hit Islamic State targets in the Syrian town of Jarablus on the border with Turkey.
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.
The PYD is a Kurdish opposition party with links to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK – an entity Turkey has been fighting for years.
Speaking to Daily Sabah on the condition of anonymity, the official said that Turkey is taking military precautions regarding the developments in Jarablus and that the prime target was DAESH, not the PYD.
Turkey shelled Islamic State positions in Syria on Tuesday for a second day, in response to mortar fire from across the border, Turkish media reported.
“Our border must be completely cleansed from Daesh”, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said in televised remarks. The attack on Saturday in Gaziantep is proof that while Syria bleeds profusely, the spillover into Turkey is very real and seems to be largely uncontainable. Many in Turkey feel the government has not done enough to protect its citizens from the Islamic State. Turkey is also concerned that attempts by Syrian Kurds to extend their control along the common border could add momentum to an insurgency by Kurds on its own territory.
Most of the 54 victims of the Gaziantep attack were children, media reports say. Gulen denies the charge.
Turkish authorities have been unable to identify the attack thus far, and Yildirim said that talk of the bomber being a child was only “rumors” but said that security services would find out who carried out the bomb blast. The bride and groom are said to be among the injured. Reports said more than half of the victims are below the age of 14.
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Prosecutors said a search was also under way for two people believed to have accompanied the suspected attacker to the wedding party but who left before the blast.
