In Gaziantep, the chief prosecutor’s office said they had found a destroyed suicide vest at the blast site.
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A family member of a victim of a suicide bombing at a wedding celebration mourn over his coffin during a funeral ceremony in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep, Turkey. One participant, shop owner Ercan Yilmaz, 36, told the AP it was “always those kinds of people being targeted – a Kurdish wedding party, opposition groups or people calling for peace in Ankara”, referring to the peace rally attacked in October.
The explosion happened as wedding guests danced in the street on Saturday evening in a predominantly Kurdish district of Gaziantep.
The pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) said the wedding party was for one of its members. The married couple are believed to have been among the injured in the blast, but their condition was not listed as serious.
Erdogan explained that IS has been trying to infiltrate the country.
“Daesh should be completely cleansed from our borders and we are ready to do what it takes for that”, Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu said at a news conference in Ankara, using an Arabic name for the group. 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. “Security operations have been conducted and are still being conducted against the terrorist organization”.
North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member Turkey is a partner in the Western coalition against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, allowing U.S. jets to fly attacks against the group from its air bases. “Just a regular wedding party”, Hamdullah Ceyhan told the state-run Anadolu Agency.
“There was just blood and body parts lying around us” he continues.
Turkey’s president says the bomber was a young boy, 12-14 years old, and probably a member of the Islamic State.
It comes amid ongoing 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 USA -based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his followers.
“Those who can not overcome Turkey and try to provoke people by abusing ethnic and sectarian sensitiveness will not prevail”, Erdogan vowed.
It is possible that the bomber had come over the border from Syria but IS is also known to have built homegrown cells inside Turkey in Gaziantep and even Istanbul, wrote its well-connected columnist Abdulkadir Selvi.
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“We understand that Turkish-backed rebels are preparing a further offensive into the IS-held province of Jarablus and will be granted safe passage across the Turkish border. This attack could have been a warning shot by IS”.
