IS ‘child bomber’ kills 51 at Turkey wedding party

TRAGEDY AT REVELRY Suicide strike targets Kurds, deadliest attack this year

ISTANBUL: An Islamic State group suicide bomber as young as 12 years old attacked an outdoor Kurdish wedding party in southeastern Turkey, killing at least 51 people and wounding dozens of others, the Turkish president said on Sunday.

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 organisation 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 said. “This attack was deplorable. How did they do such a thing?”

Turkey has been rocked by a wave of attacks in the past year that have either been claimed by Kurdish militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, or were blamed on IS. In June, suspected IS militants attacked Istanbul’s main airport with guns and bombs, 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 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.

Foreign governments, including the US, Sweden, Greece, France, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan, have condemned the Gaziantep attack.

Police sealed off the site of the explosion and forensic teams moved in. Hundreds of residents had gathered near the site chanting “Allah is great” as well as slogans denouncing attacks.

Turkish authorities issued a media blackout on coverage of the attack until the investigation is completed.

REUTERS A family member of a victim mourns during a funeral ceremony in the southern Turkish city of Gaziantep on Sunday.

AP FILE An Iraqi man prays for his slain relative at the site of a mass grave believed to contain the bodies of Iraqi soldiers killed by Islamic State militants in Camp Speicher military base in 2014.