Massacre in a pedestrian zone in Istanbul in broad daylight. A bomb killed six passers-by on Sunday and injured 81, many of them seriously. The attack is likely attributed to a middle-aged female hitman. Turkish Vice President Fuat Oktay (58) said on Sunday evening: “A suspect has detonated a bomb.” Oktay spoke of a terrorist attack.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (68) assured immediately after the – according to the president – “treacherous attack”: “Those responsible will receive the punishment they deserve.” There have been repeated politically motivated attacks by militant Kurds or Islamist groups in Istanbul and other Turkish cities. Now apparently there is a hot lead that should lead to the culprits.
Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu (52) reported early Monday that a suspect had been arrested. State-affiliated broadcaster TRT quoted Turkey’s interior minister as saying that emergency services arrested the person who planted the bomb in Istiklal shopping street. There are links to the banned Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Soylu announced retaliation, according to TRT.
The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) is on terrorist lists in Turkey, Europe and the US and has positions in southeastern Turkey and northern Iraq. Their headquarters are in the northern Iraqi Kandil Mountains. Ankara regularly acts against the PKK and has held military posts in northern Iraq since 2016.
The conflict, which has been going on since 1984, has so far claimed the lives of tens of thousands of people. A ceasefire failed in the summer of 2015.
flash of light
It is initially unclear whether the person arrested is the suspected woman. Surveillance cameras show her sitting on a bench in the shopping area in the center of the metropolis for about 40 minutes. She got up a few minutes before the explosion, Turkish Justice Minister Bekir Bozdag (57) said. It would be the suspect Vice President Oktay was talking about. The woman is dressed in dark, wearing a black hijab and a black backpack.
The killer allegedly deposited the backpack near a flower pot shortly before the explosives were detonated. People were sitting there, as a video recording shows. Others strolled around quietly. Then a flash of light that lasts about two seconds. Photos afterwards show bodies lying on the ground. Among the dead are a ministry employee and his six-year-old daughter, Family Minister Derya Yanik (50) wrote on Twitter in the evening.
The suspected killer fled in time. Investigators are currently evaluating other surveillance cameras to track the suspects’ tracks and identify possible accomplices. Information is slowly leaking out. There is a news outage in Turkey. Only official bodies are allowed to disseminate information. The authorities want to avoid panic. (kes/SDA)