30 die in suicide bomb attack near group of students in Turkish town
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AT least 30 people, mostly young students, were killed in a Turkish town near the Syrian border yesterday in what officials said appeared to be a suicide bomb attack mounted by Islamic State militants.
Television footage showed bodies lying beneath trees outside a cultural center in the mostly Kurdish town of Suruc in southeastern Turkey, some 10 kilometers from the Syrian town of Kobani, where Kurdish fighters have been battling Islamic State.
The blast tore through a group of mostly university-age students from an activist group as they gathered to make a statement to local reporters about a trip they were planning to help rebuild Kobani.
The Hurriyet newspaper said the attacker was an 18-year- old woman, but there was no confirmation.
“Our initial evidence shows that this was a suicide attack by Islamic State,” one senior official in Ankara said.
A second official also said Islamic State appeared to have been responsible and that the attack was a “retaliation for the Turkish government’s efforts to fight terrorism.”
A government official said at least 30 people were killed and around 100 wounded. The death toll could rise.
It was the bloodiest such attack in NATO member Turkey since at least 50 people were killed in the town of Reyhanli near the border in 2013.
The students from the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations had been planning a trip to Kobani to build a library, plant a forest and build a playground, Fatma Edemen, a member of the group wounded in the blast, told reporters.
“We defended it together and we will rebuild it together,” read one of the group’s banners.
“I was behind a banner so I couldn’t see the attacker, but we understand it was a suicide attack. I was thrown to the ground but I did not faint. I jumped up and began running before I even realized I was hurt,” Edemen, a 22-year-old journalism student at Ankara University, said.
The explosion comes weeks after Turkey deployed additional troops and equipment along parts of its border with Syria, concerned about the risk of spillover as fighting between Kurdish forces, rebel groups, Syrian government troops and Islamic State militants intensifies.
Turkey’s leaders have said they do not plan any unilateral military incursion into Syria but have also said they will do whatever is necessary to defend the country’s borders.
“I condemn those who conducted this brutality,” President Erdogan said.
“Terror has no religion, no country, no race.”
Ankara fears any disorder in the border area could re-ignite an armed Kurdish separatist rebellion by the Kurdistan Workers Party that has killed some 40,000 since 1984.
Turkey’s Kurds have been enraged by what they see as Ankara’s failure to do more to stop Islamic State.
The PKK held the government responsible for yesterday’s attack, saying it had “supported and cultivated” Islamic State against the Kurds.
Any unrest would also concern Western allies who seek greater controls on a porous border that serves as a frontline in the battle against Islamic State.
Video footage showed the blast coming from just behind the students as they gathered behind a banner declaring support for Kobani.
Kobani was the site of one of the biggest battles against Islamic State last year and was secured by Syrian Kurdish fighters last month after repeated assaults.
Syrian Kurdish forces, known as the YPG, drove the Islamic militants back from the town with the help of US airstrikes, after months of fighting and siege.
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