Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said Ankara could not confirm who was the perpetrator of the attack on a Kurdish wedding in the city of Gaziantep which left 54 dead, apparently contradicting President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who had said it was a child bomber acting on ISIS orders.
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The bombing in Gaziantep killed at least 54 people, according to local officials, and injured at least 66 more.
Erdogan had said on Sunday that a child suicide bomber aged “between 12 and 14” was responsible for the attack, and that the bombing in Gaziantep had been “perpetrated by Daesh”.
Following the latest attacks and the comments by the foreign minister, #TurkeyHitsISIS trended worldwide on Twitter as Turkish nationalists expressed support for the attacks on both the Islamic State group and the Kurdish militia.
The attack followed a string of strikes blamed on ISIS and Kurdish militants in the last months, but was the deadliest so far this year and the first significant terror action in Turkey since the failed July 15 coup.
A senior rebel official said Turkish-backed Syrian rebels were preparing to launch an attack to seize the Syrian town of Jarablus from Islamic State on the border with Turkey, a move that would deny control to advancing Syrian Kurdish fighters.
The developments put the U.S.’s only clear proxy in Syria, the SDF, and its North Atlantic Treaty Organisation ally, Turkey, on track for a confrontation over Jarablus, though the SDF official, Nasser Haj Mansour, would not comment on whether the SDF would send fighters to the town.
The Turkish city is about 90 km from the Syrian city of Manbij. It was not clear how long the tanks had been there.
ISIS has a history of using children as weapons, sending them strapped with explosives and putting them on front lines in Iraq and Syria.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but officials have said it appeared to be the work of the Islamic State group, accusing it of trying to destabilize the country by exploiting ethnic and religious tensions.
Last year, the armed wing of the PKK scrapped a three-year cease-fire with Ankara, after Turkish warplanes struck the group’s military training bases in northern Iraq while PKK fighters battled Islamic State militants.
Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, is known to contain several IS cells. It said 58 people were still being treated in hospitals and 13 were in serious condition. “It’s the cross-border settlement of scores by two actors fighting in Syria”. The aim of Bashar al-Assad’s opponents’ always was to drive the Syrian leader from power, but they have lacked the means to dislodge him. Now an inflection point may be at hand, with powerful opposition backer Turkey suggesting Assad, despite his brutality in the war, could play a role in an unspecified transition period.
The statement from Syrian state media does not mention any withdrawals.
The U.S. -led coalition has helped the SDF to make significant gains against Islamic State militants in northern Syria since it was established past year. Gulen denies the charge.
Turkish authorities have said a destroyed suicide vest was found at the scene of the bombing. “If my remaining child was not alive, I would commit suicide”, she told Turkish television.
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Ozcan said the group had chosen a wedding party and sent a child to carry out the attack to increase the “shock” effect of the attack.
