At least 22 of the victims in a suicide bomb attack on a wedding party in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep at the weekend were under the age of 14, a government official said on Monday.
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In a defiant speech on Monday, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said IS should be “completely cleansed” from the border area with Turkey.
The death toll rose to 54 after three of those in the most critical condition died in hospital later, the Dogan news agency reported. Almost 70 others were wounded.
The attack late Saturday on a crowded street wedding in the city of Gaziantep was the latest in a devastating series of bombings in Turkey at a time when the country is riven by internal upheaval and shaken by the civil war in neighboring Syria. “Early information on who did the attack, in what organisation’s name, is unfortunately not right”, Yildirim told reporters in Ankara.
On Monday, Turkey’s military launched howitzer attacks on Islamic State while artillery pounded Kurdish YPG militants in Syria, whom Ankara sees as an extension of its own Kurdish insurgency.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but officials said it appeared to be the work of the Islamic State group.
His comments apparently contradicted those by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan who said on Sunday that the bomber was a child aged between 12-14 acting on orders of Islamic State (IS) jihadists.
Mr Erdogan said that in his view all “terror” groups are the same, be it the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party – supporters of US-based preacher Fethullah Gulen whom he blames for the coup – or ISIS. “It is natural for us to struggle against such an organization both inside and outside of Turkey”.
Cavusoglu said Turkey had become a main target for the IS group because of measures it has implemented to stop recruits from crossing into Syria to join the fighting, as well as hundreds of arrests of IS suspects in Turkey.
Saturday’s attack comes with Turkey still in shock just a month after the government survived an attempted coup by rogue military officers, which Ankara blames on USA -based Islamist preacher Fethullah Gulen.
The device used in the attack was the same type used in 2015 attacks on a peace rally in Ankara and on the border district of Suruc, a senior security official said yesterday.
Media said the majority of those dead were children or teenagers, with 29 of the 44 victims identified so far aged under 18.
The aim of the strikes, according to one Turkish official, “is to open a corridor for moderate rebels”.
The pro-Kurdish political party HDP condemned the attack on the wedding, which it said was attended by many of its party members. He lost five young cousins in the attack.
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“I can not recount what I saw”, he told Anadolu Agency.
