PM: ‘Almost certain’ PKK behind Ankara attack; targets hit

Agencies

ANKARA: Turkey has obtained “very serious and almost certain” findings that point to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militant group having carried out Sunday’s bombing in Ankara that killed 37 people, Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said.
There has not been any claim of responsibility for the bombing and Davutoglu said DNA investigations were being done to identify the attackers. He also said added in comments broadcast live on television that Turkey had carried out airstrikes against PKK camps in Northern Iraq after the perpetrators of the attack were determined.
Nine F-16s and two F-4 jets raided 18 positions of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, in northern Iraq, including the Qandil mountains where the group’s leadership is based, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported. Ammunition depots, bunkers and shelters were among the targets hit.
Anadolu, citing unnamed security sources, said four people suspected of direct links to the bombing were detained in the southeastern city of Sanliurfa on Monday. The report did not say in what way they were suspected of involvement. Police, meanwhile, carried out raids in the southern city of Adana, detaining 38 suspected PKK rebels, the agency reported. Fifteen suspected Kurdish militants were also detained in Istanbul, Anadolu said.
Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said three more people died overnight from wounds suffered in the Sunday night’s suicide attack that targeted buses and people waiting at bus stops in the heart of Ankara. Around 125 people were wounded in the blast, with 71 people still hospitalized. Of those, 15 were in serious condition.
A senior government official told The Associated Press that authorities believe the attack was carried out by two bombers — one of them a woman — and was the work of Kurdish militants.
About 210 people have died in five suicide bombings in Turkey since July that were blamed either on the Kurdish rebels or the Daesh group.
“All five attacks are linked to the fallout of the Syrian civil war,” said Soner Cagaptay, a Turkey expert at the Washington Institute in e-mailed comments. “Ankara’s ill-executed Syria policy ... has exposed Turkey to great risks.”
“The question, unfortunately, is not if there will be a terror attack again, but when the next attack will be,” Cagaptay said.
Sunday’s blast came as Turkey’s security forces were preparing to launch large-scale operations against militants in two mainly Kurdish towns after authorities imposed curfews there, prompting some residents to flee. The operation in the town of Nusaybin, on the border with Syria, began on Monday, Anadolu reported. Tanks have also been deployed at the town of Yuksekova, near the border with Iraq, but it wasn’t immediately clear when the offensive there would start.