Turkey: Child carried bomb to wedding

Deaths climb to 51 in blast president blames on ISIS

People carry a victim’s coffin during funeral services Sunday for dozens of people killed in Saturday night’s bomb attack targeting an outdoor wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey.
People carry a victim’s coffin during funeral services Sunday for dozens of people killed in Saturday night’s bomb attack targeting an outdoor wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey.

ISTANBUL -- A child suicide bomber killed at least 51 people and wounded nearly 70 others at a Kurdish wedding party near Turkey's border with Syria, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday, decrying the attack as an apparent attempt by extremists to destabilize the nation.

photo

AP

A man mourns over a grave Sunday in Gaziantep, Turkey, as relatives and friends attend funeral services for dozens of people killed in Saturday night’s bomb attack.


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"As of now, the preliminary conclusions by our governor's office and the police establishment point to an attack by Daesh," Erdogan said, using another term for the Islamic State militant group.

The bombing late Saturday in Gaziantep was the deadliest single attack in Turkey this year, though more than 270 were killed in last month's failed coup attempt. Turkey is still reeling in the aftermath of the coup attempt, which the government has blamed on U.S.-based Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen and his followers.

Erdogan said immediately after the Gaziantep attack that any strategy "meant to incite the citizens against each other along ethnic and religious lines will not work."

Later, addressing the nation before Istanbul's city hall, Erdogan said the attacker in Gaziantep was 12 to 14 years old. He said 69 people were wounded, with 17 of them in critical condition.

He again blamed the attack on the Islamic State, but there was no immediate claim of responsibility. Authorities in Turkey have blamed the Islamic State, also known by the acronym ISIS, for at least three other attacks in 2016, though the group has not claimed any of the attacks.

Multiple opposition parties denounced the attack, as did many foreign governments including the United States, Germany, Austria, Russia, Egypt, Sweden, Greece, France, Bahrain, Qatar and Jordan and global institutions including the United Nations, the European Union and NATO.

"We stand by our ally Turkey and pledge to continue to work closely together to defeat the common threat of terrorism," said U.S. Ambassador to Turkey John Bass.

In the Vatican, Pope Francis led hundreds of people in silent prayer for the victims of the attack, concluding by asking "for the gift of peace for everyone."

After the attack, police sealed off the site of the explosion and forensic teams moved in. Outside the perimeter, hundreds of residents gathered, chanting "Allah is great" as well as slogans denouncing the attacks.

Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek and the country's health minister traveled to the scene, visiting the wounded and inspecting the site.

"This is a massacre of unprecedented cruelty and barbarism," Simsek told reporters. "We ... are united against all terror organizations. They will not yield."

Other attacks

The suicide bombing comes after a June attack on Istanbul's main airport where Islamic State suspects killed 44 people. Turkish officials have also blamed the Islamic State for bombings this year that struck Istanbul's old city near the Blue Mosque, as well as the city's most famous shopping boulevard, Istiklal Avenue.

A dual suicide bombing blamed on the Islamic State at a peace rally in Turkey's capital, Ankara, in October killed 103 people.

There have also been ongoing attacks claimed by the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party or linked to the militant group, as well as the coup attempt blamed on Gulen's movement. Gulen has denied any involvement.

Last week, a string of bombings blamed on the Kurdistan Workers' Party targeted police and soldiers, killing at least a dozen people. A fragile, 2½-year peace process between the Kurdistan Workers' Party and the government collapsed last year, leading to the resumption of a three-decade conflict.

Security expert Metin Gurcan, a former Turkish military officer and columnist for the online newspaper Al-Monitor, said that Islamic State militants view the latest attack as "hitting two birds with one stone" -- as retaliation for Syrian Kurdish advances on their forces in Syria, and for Turkey's attacks on Islamic State targets.

Gurcan said in an email that the Islamic State group has been trying to agitate or exploit ethnic and religious tensions in Turkey, and "we know very well to what extent wedding attacks can sow disorder in nation's social fabric from the Afghanistan experience."

In the immediate aftermath of the Gaziantep bombing, Erdogan said there was "absolutely no difference" between the Islamic State, Kurdish rebels and Gulen's movement, calling them terrorist groups.

Gurcan said, however, that it was a "grave mistake" to lump the three together.

"Putting these three organizations with different political objectives, tactics and techniques into the same basket ... causes the failure of tailoring specific counter-strategies," he said.

The pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party condemned the attack on the wedding, which it said had been for one of its members, and that "many citizens, including women and children, lost their lives."

The party said in a statement that it was "quite significant" that the attack, which it also blamed on the Islamic State, came hours after the Kurdistan Communities Union, a militant organization that includes the Kurdistan Workers' Party, announced plans to try to negotiate an end to their conflict with the Turkish government.

"This attack targets those determined and persistent in peace, resolution, and those struggling for democracy, equality, freedom and justice," the statement said. "The attack was planned to disable the spread of peace and success of possible negotiations."

In Istanbul, supporters of the Peoples' Democratic Party organized a rally attended by hundreds Sunday evening to protest the bombing. One participant, shop owner Ercan Yilmaz, 36, said 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.

"On the other hand, the AKP [Turkey's ruling Justice and Development Party] has gatherings and rallies everywhere, but they're never bombed," he added.

A town's decline

For years Gaziantep was famous for its cuisine, especially baklava, the sweet pastry made with pistachios grown nearby. Before war broke out in Syria, busloads of Syrians crossed the border almost daily to shop there.

But after the war, Gaziantep became more violent. Police found a bomb-making facility in the city, which they said the Islamic State used in the attack on Ankara last year. The bomber who struck Istanbul's Istiklal Avenue also came from there, officials said. The Islamic State is blamed for the murders of Syrian journalists in Gaziantep.

"It was clear that Daesh had such an organization in Gaziantep or was attempting to make room for itself in recent times," Erdogan said Sunday.

With the attack, the city's place as a battleground came into focus again.

"In this area, we live in a ring of fire," said Hilmi Karaca, a Kurdish activist who witnessed the explosion. "Mothers are weeping for their dead children just hours after crying tears of joy at a wedding."

"We had just walked past the wedding and offered our good wishes when we heard the blast," added Ibrahim Ates, a Gaziantep resident. "Suddenly people started running past us. When we went back to see what had happened, everyone was on the floor, and there were body parts scattered everywhere and blood splattered on the walls."

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, Besna and Nurettin Akdogan, weren't in life-threatening condition and were undergoing treatment, but the groom's sister and uncle were among the dead, Anadolu reported. Neighbors said the two were cousins who had been engaged for six months.

"They turned our wedding into a blood bath," the bride said, according to Anadolu.

The Islamic State has a history of using children as weapons, strapped them with explosives and putting them on the front lines. The group maintains an army of child soldiers, which it calls "cubs of the caliphate," and seeks to re-educate children at Islamic State-run schools, exposing them to violent acts including beheadings as part of an effort to raise a new generation of militants. Islamic State videos have shown boys killing their opponents through beheadings and shootings.

The U.N.'s children's agency, UNICEF, said in a recent report that thousands of children have been abducted in Iraq. Girls, the group says, are at greatest risk of being sold into sexual slavery while boys are often forced into becoming combatants or suicide bombers.

Arif Yugmen, 35, who had left the wedding just before the attack, noted that many children were among the victims, saying that it was because they had gathered away from the folk dancing and closer to the site of the blast.

Mahmut Togrul, a lawmaker with the Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party who on Sunday visited the scene of the attack, said the wedding had been a traditional Kurdish ceremony in a predominantly Kurdish neighborhood.

Nearby, Mizgin Gurbuzun, grieved over her dead 16-year-old son, falling to her knees beside his coffin.

Rocking back and forth, and crying, she wailed, "My martyr son has gone."

Information for this article was contributed by Cinar Kiper, David Rising, Suzan Fraser and staff writers of The Associated Press; by Erin Cunningham of The Washington Post; and by Tim Arango and Ceylan Yeginsu of The New York Times.

A Section on 08/22/2016

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