Female Isil bomber kills dozens in Turkey
Young suicide attacker kills 31 in ‘revenge’ strike for efforts to stop jihadists
A suspected female Isil suicide bomber set off an explosion near a cultural centre hosting youth activists in a Turkish border town, leaving 31 dead and scores injured. The blast was a few miles from the Syrian flashpoint of Kobane, which was itself later hit in a co-ordinated suicide car bombing. Most of the dead were university students with the Federation of Socialist Youths, who had been planning a mission to help rebuild Kobane, which was retaken from Isil by Kurdish fighters earlier this year.
A SUSPECTED female Isil suicide bomber yesterday set off an explosion near a cultural centre hosting youth activists in a Turkish border town, leaving 31 dead and scores injured.
The blast ripped through the crowd of students in Suruc, just a few miles from the Syrian flashpoint of Kobane, which was itself later hit in a co-ordinated suicide car bombing.
Most of the dead were members of the Federation of Socialist Youths, who had been planning a mission to help rebuild Kobane, which was retaken from Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) by Kurdish fighters earlier this year.
If Isil’s role in the bombing is confirmed, it would be one of the extremist group’s deadliest strikes on Turkish soil to date.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish president, condemned the attack which left 100 injured as an “act of terror”, saying his nation was “drowning in grief ”.
Turkish officials last night said they believed a female Isil sympathiser was responsible. A local journalist reported that one witness said that she had seen a young woman in a suicide vest.
A second official also said that Isil appeared to have been responsible and that the attack was a “retaliation for the Turkish government’s efforts to fight terrorism”. Mr Erdogan’s government has cracked down on Isil recruitment networks in recent weeks, responding to long-standing pressure from Western nations and Syrian rebels.
Before the suicide bomber struck yesterday morning, dozens of young Turkish and Kurdish men and women shared food around long tables at the cultural centre.
A video was taken of activists holding the federation’s flag and a large banner saying: “We defended it together, we are building it together.”
It was at that moment the explosion tore through the group.
In the footage, survivors can be heard screaming as bodies lie strewn across the remains of the shattered ta- ble frames. “I saw more than 20 bodies. I think the number of wounded is more than 50. They are still being put into ambulances,” said one witness, who gave his name as Mehmet. “It was a huge explosion, we all shook.”
Fatma Edemen, 22, said the federation of about 200 youths was pressing for access to help reconstruction in Kobane. The bomb exploded as their press conference was ending.
“One of my friends protected me. First I thought ‘I am dying’, but I was OK. I started to run after I saw the bodies,” she said as she headed to hospital to get treatment for minor injuries to her legs.
Speaking by phone, her voice shaking, she said the group had believed Kobane was relatively safe and ready to rebuild. “Our friends went there and it didn’t seem dangerous at that time. We couldn’t even think something like that would happen,” she said, adding that they hoped to build a kindergarten.
Mr Erdogan condemned the perpetrators during a visit to Northern Cyprus, before the final death toll was given. “We are drowning in grief that 28 citizens died and a large number of people were injured as a result of an act of terror,” he said. “On behalf of my people, I curse and condemn the perpetrators of this brutality.”
Hundreds of Kurdish demonstrators protested in Istanbul yesterday to denounce the attack. Aaron Stein, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Security Studies, told the attack appeared to target Kurds rather than the Turkish state, and was “a spillover of their fight with Isil”.
If Isil were to attack Turkey directly, he said, it “would be signalling a big shift in its military modus operandi, which is to leave Turkey alone in favour of consolidating its gains inside Syria”.
Suruc is a bastion of support for the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Kurdish militia that has led the fight against Isil along Syria’s northern border. The town is also home to one of the biggest refugee camps housing Syrians who have fled the bloody conflict at home, sheltering 35,000 refugees.