Ankara suicide bomber was brother of suspect in previous attack, Turkey says

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/oct/19/ankara-suicide-bomber-was-brother-of-suspect-in-previous-attack-turkey-says

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Turkish authorities have identified one of two suicide bombers who killed 102 people in an attack on a peace parade in Ankara earlier this month.

The Ankara prosecutor’s office named the bomber as Yunus Emre Alagöz, a young man from the town of Adiyaman in south-east Turkey, whose brother carried out a similar attack in July. Work was continuing on identifying the other bomber, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.

Alagöz was a prime suspect in the Ankara bombing targeting pro-Kurdish activists, the worst attack of its kind in modern Turkey’s history, which occurred as political parties prepared for a parliamentary election on 1 November.

His brother, Şeyh Abdurrahman Alagöz, walked into a group of pro-Kurdish student activists in Suruç near the Syrian border in July and blew himself up, killing 33 people.

According to state media, the Alagöz brothers would hold court in a small teahouse in the conservative town of Adiyaman with young followers, praying, reading the Koran and painting a picture of a better life across the border in Syria, among the ranks of Islamic State.

The Turkish prime minister, Ahmet Davutoğlu, said in an interview with AHaber TV on Monday that authorities had confirmed the identity of one of the two suicide bombers and that 15 people had been detained over the bombing, four of whom were remanded in custody.

The Ankara blasts triggered protests against what critics of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the government see as major intelligence failings.

Two officials at the Adiyaman prosecutor’s office had previously told Reuters that the Alagöz brothers’ father had filed a criminal complaint against Yunus on 15 October 2014 stating his suspicion that he had joined an “armed terrorist organisation”.