This article is from the source 'guardian' and was first published or seen on . It last changed over 40 days ago and won't be checked again for changes.

You can find the current article at its original source at http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/20/explosion-hits-turkish-town-near-syrian-border

The article has changed 12 times. There is an RSS feed of changes available.

Version 5 Version 6
Deadly explosion hits Turkish town near Syrian border Suspected suicide bomber strikes Turkish town near Syrian border
(about 1 hour later)
An explosion outside a cultural centre in the Turkish town of Suruç, near the border with Syria, has killed at least 27 people and wounded many more, in what senior officials said may have been a suicide bombing by Islamic State militants. At least 27 people have died and almost 100 have been injured in an apparent suicide bombing in a Turkish town near the Syrian border – one of the most serious incidents yet of violent spillover from the Syrian war into its northern neighbour.
Television footage showed bodies lying beneath trees outside the building in the mostly Kurdish town in south-eastern Turkey, which lies about six miles (10km) from the Syrian border. The town of Suruç lies across the border from the Kurdish enclave of Kobani – scene of heavy fighting between Syrian Kurdish fighters and Islamic State. The interior ministry said the death toll from the “terror attack” outside a cultural centre is expected to rise.
“Our initial evidence shows that this was a suicide attack by Islamic State,” a senior official in Ankara told Reuters. Photographs circulated on social media showed bodies strewn in the garden of the centre, where young people from the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations were gathering for a press conference before a planned visit to Kobani to assist with its reconstruction. The organisation published a photograph just before the blast, showing the young people gathered at a table in the garden.
A second official also said Isis appeared to have been responsible and that the attack was a “retaliation for the Turkish government’s efforts to fight terrorism”. The Hurriyet newspaper said on its website that the suicide bomber was an 18-year old woman, but there was no independent confirmation of this. “I saw more than 20 bodies. I think the number of wounded is more than 50. They are still being put into ambulances,” one witness told Reuters by telephone. “It was a huge explosion, we all shook.”
The interior ministry said 27 people were killed and around 100 wounded. The death toll could rise. Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, said: “I condemn those who conducted this brutality. Terror has no religion, no country, no race.”
“I saw more than 20 bodies. I think the number of wounded is more than 50. They are still being put into ambulances,” one witness said by telephone, giving his name as Mehmet. “It was a huge explosion, we all shook.” There was no confirmation of who was responsible for the attack, though Turkish media speculated that it may have been perpetrated by an 18-year old female Isis suicide bomber. The daily Hurriyet newspaper quoted the governor of Sanliurfa as saying it was a suicide attack.
The explosion comes weeks after Turkey deployed additional troops and equipment along parts of its border with Syria, concerned about the risk of spillover as fighting between Kurdish forces, rebel groups, Syrian government troops and Isis militants intensified. Two senior Turkish officials told Reuters they suspected that Isis was responsible, citing “initial evidence” and saying it was “retaliation for the Turkish government’s efforts to fight terrorism”.
Turkey’s leaders have said they do not plan any unilateral military incursion into Syria but have also said they will do whatever is necessary to defend the country’s borders. Also on Monday, a suicide bomber in a car targeted a checkpoint for the YPG, the mainly Kurdish militia in Syria, in southern Kobani, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Ankara fears any disorder in the border area could reignite an armed Kurdish separatist rebellion that has killed 40,000 since 1984. It would also concern western allies who seek greater controls on a porous frontier that serves as a frontline in the battle against Isis. It was the latest attack against the enclave, which emerged as a symbol of Kurdish defiance against Isis. After months of ferocious fighting backed by air strikes by a US-led coalition, Kurdish militias were able to regain control of Kobani in after an ill-fated assault by Isis last month that saw the militant group lose hundreds of fighters. More than 200 people were killed in the assault – one of Isis’s largest single massacres of civilians since it emerged in Syria two years ago.
Pervin Buldan, a senior lawmaker from Turkey’s pro-Kurdish HDP opposition party, said local officials were investigating the possibility that the explosion was a suicide bombing. There was no evidence that the attacks were coordinated, though the bombing in Suruç is a dangerous escalation against Turkey. Many foreigners cross its long and porous southern border on their way to fight with Isis.
Buldan said the blast happened as Turkish and Kurdish youths gathered at the cultural centre ahead of a planned trip to the Syrian border town of Kobani, which was secured by Syrian Kurdish fighters last month after an assault by Isis. Turkey also backs a number of rebel groups fighting to overthrow the regime of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, who is in the throes of a rebellion now in its fifth year. Turkey also hosts 1.7 million registered Syrian refugees who have fled the conflict.
The group – the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations – had been planning a trip to Kobani to build a library, plant a forest and build a playground in the town, Fatma Edemen, a member of the group wounded in the blast, told Reuters. Kurdish militias allied with Syrian opposition fighters have recently ousted Isis from large tracts of land near the Turkish border, including the town of Tal Abyad, a key stopping point for foreign fighters. The advances sparked concerns in Turkey, which fought a long-running insurgency with the Kurds, that their old nemeses were carving out an autonomous zone of control. The public concern sparked talk of a possible Turkish military intervention and an expansion of its presence on the border.
“We defended it together and we will rebuild it together,” read one of its banners at the scene.
Kobani was the site of one of the biggest battles against Isis last year. Syrian Kurdish forces, known as the YPG, drove the militants back from the town with the help of US air strikes, after months of fighting and siege.
Turkey’s Kurds were enraged at the time by Ankara’s refusal to intervene to stop the Isis siege.
Sources in prime minister Ahmet Davutoğlu’s office said he had ordered the deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmuş, as well as the interior and labour ministers, to go to Suruç.
A video posted on Facebook by one of the youth activists showed at least 20 people lying on the ground, some still alive. People milled about trying to comfort the wounded as others cried out. Smoke and dust rose from the ground. A hospital source made an urgent request for blood donations.
“Ambulances and private cars are picking up the wounded … I am going to the hospital to help out,” Adham Basho, a local politician, said by telephone as sirens wailed in the background.