Turkey blames Syrian Kurds for Ankara attack

The massive car bomb struck five buses carrying military service personnel when it stopped at a red traffic light in the centre of the capital on Wednesday evening. Sixty-one people were wounded. It was latest in a string of deadly strikes that have rocked Turkey since last summer and one of the deadliest assaults targeting the military in the NATO member state in recent years. 

Also today, at least six soldiers were killed in an attack on their convoy in south eastern Turkey blamed on Kurdish militants, security sources said. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the Ankara attack was carried out by operatives of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in cooperation with the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). “It has with certainty been revealed that this attack was carried out by members of the terrorist organisation in Turkey in cooperation with a YPG member who infiltrated from Syria,” Davutoglu told reporters. “The attack has direct links with YPG.” 

He said the bomber was a Syrian national named Salih Necar and that nine people had been detained over the attack. Davutoglu vowed to make the culprits “pay a price,” saying Turkey would take any kind of measure on its border including self-defence. 

Hours after the attack, Turkey’s air force launched new strikes on PKK targets in northern Iraq, acting on intelligence that there were dozens of fighters including top rebel leaders in the area, the army said. Davutoglu said 70 fighters had been killed in the strikes. 

Turkey considers both the PKK and YPG to be terror groups, in contrast to the United States which only classifies the PKK as a terror organisation and works closely with the YPG as an effective force fighting jihadists in Syria.