Child bomber kills 51 at wedding
Print Edition
AN Islamic State group suicide bomber as young as 12 attacked an outdoor Kurdish wedding party in southeastern Turkey, killing at least 51 people and wounding dozens of others, the Turkish president said yesterday.
The bombing late Saturday in Gaziantep, near Turkey’s border with Syria, was the deadliest attack in Turkey this year.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, speaking live on national television in front of Istanbul’s city hall, said the attacker was aged between 12 and 14. He said 69 people were wounded, with 17 of them in critical condition.
“It was clear that Daesh had such an organization in Gaziantep or was attempting to make room for itself in recent times,” Erdogan said, using an alternative acronym for IS. “Many intensive operations were conducted, are being conducted. Of course our security forces will be conducting these operations with even greater intensity.”
A bus driver who shuttled some of the guests from Siirt to Gaziantep said that he couldn’t believe the party was targeted.
“This was a wedding party. Just a regular wedding party,” Hamdullah Ceyhan told the state-run Anadolu news agency. “This attack was deplorable. How did they do such a thing?”
The bride and groom were undergoing treatment for injuries which were not life-threatening, Anadolu reported, but the groom’s sister and uncle were among the dead.
Turkey has been rocked by a wave of attacks in the past year that have been claimed by Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) or were blamed on IS.
In June, suspected IS militants attacked Istanbul’s main airport, killing 44 people. A dual suicide bombing blamed on IS at a peace rally in Turkey’s capital Ankara in October killed 103 victims.
The latest attack comes as the country is still reeling from last month’s failed coup attempt, which the government has blamed on US-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his followers.
Gulen denies any involvement.
Erdogan said there was “absolutely no difference” between IS, Kurdish rebels and Gulen’s movement.
“These bloodthirsty organizations and the powers behind them have neither the will nor power to silence the calls to prayer, lower the flag, divide our motherland and break up our nation,” he added.
Earlier last week, a string of bombings blamed on the PKK which targeted police and soldiers killed at least a dozen people. A fragile peace process lasting more than two years between the PKK and the government collapsed last year, leading to a resumption of the three-decade-long conflict.
In Gaziantep, Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek and the country’s health minister visited the wounded and inspected the site of the attack.
“This is a massacre of unprecedented cruelty and barbarism,” he told reporters. “We are united against all terror organizations. They will not yield.”
Prime Minister Binali Yildirim vowed to prevail over the “devilish” attacks.
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