A bomb attack targeting an outdoor wedding party in southeastern Turkey killed at least 30 people and wounded 94 others, authorities said Sunday.
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The Ankara official said the Turkish shelling came after mortar rounds, believed to have been fired by the militants from Jarablus, landed on Turkish territory.
People gather after an explosion in Gaziantep, southeastern Turkey, early Sunday, Aug. 21, 2016. “Those who were behind the attack will be revealed, there is no doubt about this”, he said.
Turkish howitzers fired about 20 rounds across the Syrian border on Monday, targeting Kurdish-held Manbij, Reuters reports, citing an unnamed Turkish official who also confirmed that the shelling of Jarablus, which is held by Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL, also Daesh), is continuing.
Saturday’s attack comes with Turkey still in shock just a month after Erdogan and the government survived an attempted coup by rogue military officers, which Ankara blames on US-based Islamist preacher Fethullah Gulen.
Early reports of a child suicide bomber were highly unusual for Turkey, Peter says.
Turkey seeks to “cleanse” the country’s Syrian border area of ISIS militants after a wedding bombing that killed at least 51 people.
Gaziantep is about 95 kilometers (60 miles) north of the war-torn Syrian city of Aleppo.
“They turned our best day to hell”.
Mia Bloom, a Georgia State University professor who is an expert on child soldiers and terrorism, said ISIS made wide use of children in conflict, typically employing them as bombers or snipers, either attached to adult fighting units or operating on their own.
The groom was among those injured, but the bride was not hurt.
The bombing follows a suspected IS attack in June on Istanbul’s main airport that killed 44 people; a double suicide bombing blamed on IS at a peace rally in Turkey’s capital, Ankara, in October killed 103 people.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said the wedding party was for one of its members.
Halil Ilter said he was at home when he heard the explosion and rushed to the scene to check on his relatives.
The attack came after the Syria Democratic Forces, a coalition led by the main Kurdish militia groups in Syria, captured the former IS stronghold of Manbij in northern Syria under the cover of airstrikes by the USA -led coalition.
Turkey has experienced a string of deadly bomb blasts, blamed variously on ISIS and the PKK.
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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.
