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9 Are Detained in Car Bombings, Turkey Says Turkey Says Evidence Links Syria to Car Bombings
(about 3 hours later)
REYHANLI — Turkish authorities said Sunday that nine people had been detained in twin car bombings a day earlier in southern Turkey that killed 46 people and injured at least 155. REYHANLI, Turkey — Turkish authorities said Sunday that 9 people had been detained in twin car bombings a day earlier in southern Turkey that killed 46 people, as funerals were held for at least 20 of the victims in this town near the Syrian border.
Speaking at a news conference, senior government officials said that the nine people detained had been linked to the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad through evidence gathered after the bombings in Reyhanli near Turkey’s border with Syria. Speaking at a news conference, senior government officials said that the investigation had linked the detainees, who were all Turkish citizens, to the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, and asserted that the attack was aimed at disrupting Turkey’s unity. The officials did not detail any ties between the suspects and Mr. Assad’s government, but said the evidence included incriminating statements made by the attackers themselves.
“The incident was carried out by those who have been closely linked with pro-regime groups in Syria,” Turkey’s interior minister, Muammer Guler, said. “The incident was carried out by those who have been closely linked with pro-regime groups in Syria,” Turkey’s interior minister, Muammer Guler, said. “There is no merit in spelling out the names, we know them all.”
“There is no merit in spelling out the names, we know them all,” Mr. Guler said. Turkey’s government has strongly backed the rebels fighting Mr. Assad. The Syrian government on Sunday denied an involvement in the bombings, and said Turkey’s government bore responsibility. “Syria didn’t and will never undertake such acts because our values don’t allow us to do this,” Omran al-Zoubi, the information minister, was quoted as saying in Damascus.
The Syrian government on Sunday denied an involvement. “Syria didn’t and will never undertake such acts because our values don’t allow us to do this,” Omran al-Zoubi, the information minister, was quoted as saying in Damascus. The developments in the investigation came as Turkey’s government struggled to contain the domestic fallout from the bombings, which were among the deadliest attacks on civilians in Turkey in at least a decade. After the explosions, groups of Turkish youths attacked cars and apartments belonging to Syrian refugees living in Reyhanli, where small protests were also held against the government.
Turkish officials, saying they were worried about the integrity of the investigation, banned local media from broadcasting photographs of the bombing sites, in what also seemed an effort to stop the images from inflaming the public.
The bombings on Saturday, within 15 minutes of each other, tore through Reyhanli’s municipal headquarters and a busy commercial thoroughfare, damaging shops hundreds of yards away. On Sunday, officials said they had identified 39 victims, and said they included 35 Turkish citizens and 3 Syrians.
If connected to the Syrian war, as Turkey claimed, the attack would be the deadliest spillover since the beginning of the uprising against Mr. Assad in March 2011. In October, shells fired from Syria killed five people in Turkey, and the Turkish government blamed Mr. Assad’s forces. At least 14 people died in a separate episode when a car bomb exploded at a border crossing.If connected to the Syrian war, as Turkey claimed, the attack would be the deadliest spillover since the beginning of the uprising against Mr. Assad in March 2011. In October, shells fired from Syria killed five people in Turkey, and the Turkish government blamed Mr. Assad’s forces. At least 14 people died in a separate episode when a car bomb exploded at a border crossing.
Reuters quoted Deputy Prime Minister Besir Atalay as saying that all nine people detained were Turkish citizens. As rescue workers in orange jumpsuits combed through the wreckage on Sunday, anxious relatives traveled to Reyhanli’s morgue, to try and find information about people who had not been found, or who were still unidentified. They included Ibrahim Yeshar, 30, whose uncle showed a passport-sized picture to news photographers, hoping that someone knew something.
Officials said that 35 of the 46 dead were Turkish citizens and 3 were Syrian, while 8 were still unidentified. Two of the 55 still hospitalized in critical condition after more than one hundred were treated at hospitals and medical centers in several cities including Istanbul, Ankara and Adana, the health minister, Mehmet Muezzinoglu, said. Fatima and Mehmet Aldag hobbled past as they left the hospital, with facial scars and other injuries they suffered in the blast. Mehmet said the explosion hit him “all of a sudden,” and wounded three other people in his family. It was was aimed, he said, at “creating problems between Syrians and Turks.”
The powerful car bombs, which came 15 minutes and barely a mile apart, transformed downtown office blocks in Reyhanli into smoldering husks in one of the deadliest attacks on Turkish soil in at least a decade. Officials said investigations continued to determine the type of explosives used. Turkish officials have been especially concerned with the possibility that sectarian tensions that have come to define the civil war in Syria will spill over the border, and trouble ethnically mixed regions of southern Turkey. There are also fears that the sheer numbers of Syrians in Turkey will stoke resentment: around Reyhanli, some 25,000 Syrian refugees live among 90,000 Turkish citizens, according to local officials.
Hours after the explosion, officials with Turkey’s government, which has backed the rebels fighting President Assad of Syria, said the suspects in the bombing belonged to an organization linked to Mr. Assad’s intelligence services, though they did not offer an explanation of how they reached that conclusion. On Sunday, Ibrahim al-Ibrahim, a Syrian refugee in Reyhanli, said he and other Syrians had been sequestered in their homes since the bombings. His windows had been blown out by one of the explosions, a few blocks away. After the bombings, youths threw rocks through the open windowpanes. On Sunday, three young Turkish men smashed the hood and windows of a white van downstairs that belonged to a Syrian neighbor.
Turkey’s claims of Syrian involvement raised the possibility of an escalating conflict with that country and the broadening of the war. A senior Turkish Foreign Ministry official said Saturday that the government had not reached the point where it was considering a military retaliation, but added, “No crime will be left without a response.” Mr. Ibrahim said the bombings occurred as he received word that his house in Syria had been destroyed. “I have no house there, and no house here,” he said.
In blaming Mr. Assad’s government, Turkish officials seemed anxious to stave off any possible backlash against thousands of Syrian refugees in Reyhanli or its allies in the Syrian opposition for the bombing. The town is in a region of southern Turkey where some Turks have bristled at their government’s willingness to make Turkey a party to the war, putting it at risk. Turkish officials said the detainees included the ringleaders of the attack, and said that several suspects were still at large. Mr. Guler, the interior minister, said some suspects "were the ones who personally planned, did the reconnaissance and hid these cars.”
Turkish officials have been especially concerned with the possibility that sectarian tensions that have come to define the civil war in Syria will spill over the border, and trouble ethnically mixed regions of southern Turkey. There are also fears that the sheer numbers of Syrians in the country will stoke resentment: around Reyhanli, some 25,000 Syrian refugees live among 90,000 Turkish citizens, according to local officials.
After the bombings on Saturday, angry residents smashed the windows of cars from Syria, and a Turkish newspaper reported that protests against Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan later erupted in Reyhanli’s streets.
The attack occurred as Mr. Erdogan was scheduled to visit Washington this week to meet President Obama and discuss the urgency for a resolution of the conflict in Syria. Secretary of State John Kerry released a statement condemning the bombings and praising Turkey’s role as a “vital interlocutor.”

Kareem Fahim reported from Reyhanli, and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul. Karam Shoumali contributed reporting from Reyhanli.

Kareem Fahim reported from Reyhanli, and Sebnem Arsu from Istanbul. Karam Shoumali contributed reporting from Reyhanli.