Al jazeera News :
Turkey has said the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is the prime suspect in the suicide bombings that killed at least 97 people in Ankara as anger grows about the government’s inability to have prevented the attack.
The twin bomb blasts at a peace rally on Saturday have raised tensions in Turkey, three weeks before snap elections are due on November 1.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday’s attack, the worst of its kind on Turkish soil, was intended to influence the outcome of the polls – which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes will restore a majority the ruling AK party lost in June. Officials say there is no question of postponing the vote.
“If you consider the way the attack happened and the general trend of it, we have identified Islamic State as the primary focus,” Davutoglu told Turkey’s NTV television on Monday, referring to ISIL.
“It was definitely a suicide bombing … DNA tests are being conducted. It was determined how the suicide bombers got there. We’re close to a name, which points to one group.”
Turkey is vulnerable to infiltration by ISIL, which holds swaths of Syrian land abutting Turkey where some two million refugees live. But there has been no word from the group – usually swift to publicly claim responsibility for any attack it conducts – over the Ankara bombing or two very similar incidents earlier this year.
Saturday’s attack came in less than three months since a suicide bombing blamed on ISIL, also against peace activists, in the town of Suruc on the Syrian border that killed 33 people.
Funerals were held across the country on Monday for many of the victims of Saturday’s bombing and flags flew at half-mast across the nation during three days of national mourning.
Turkey has said the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) is the prime suspect in the suicide bombings that killed at least 97 people in Ankara as anger grows about the government’s inability to have prevented the attack.
The twin bomb blasts at a peace rally on Saturday have raised tensions in Turkey, three weeks before snap elections are due on November 1.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday’s attack, the worst of its kind on Turkish soil, was intended to influence the outcome of the polls – which President Recep Tayyip Erdogan hopes will restore a majority the ruling AK party lost in June. Officials say there is no question of postponing the vote.
“If you consider the way the attack happened and the general trend of it, we have identified Islamic State as the primary focus,” Davutoglu told Turkey’s NTV television on Monday, referring to ISIL.
“It was definitely a suicide bombing … DNA tests are being conducted. It was determined how the suicide bombers got there. We’re close to a name, which points to one group.”
Turkey is vulnerable to infiltration by ISIL, which holds swaths of Syrian land abutting Turkey where some two million refugees live. But there has been no word from the group – usually swift to publicly claim responsibility for any attack it conducts – over the Ankara bombing or two very similar incidents earlier this year.
Saturday’s attack came in less than three months since a suicide bombing blamed on ISIL, also against peace activists, in the town of Suruc on the Syrian border that killed 33 people.
Funerals were held across the country on Monday for many of the victims of Saturday’s bombing and flags flew at half-mast across the nation during three days of national mourning.
