TODAY
SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi
(Photo: Kurdistan 24)
Turkey SDF Turkey Istanbul attack PKK
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi on Monday denied SDF involvement in the Istanbul attack.
"We affirm that our forces have nothing to do with the Istanbul bombing, and we reject the allegations accusing our forces of that," he tweeted.
"We express our sincere condolences to the families of victims and the Turkish people, and we wish a speedy recovery for the injured."
The Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu Agency reported that Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu on early Monday blamed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the People's Protection Units (YPG) and claimed the order was given in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani.
“Our assessment is that the order for the deadly terror attack came from Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) in northern Syria, where the PKK/YPG has its Syrian headquarters,” said Soylu.
“We will retaliate against those who are responsible for this heinous terror attack,” he added.
Moreover, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)-affiliated Headquarters Command of the People’s Defense Center on Monday also rejected involvement in the attack.
The PKK also offered "condolences to the relatives of the victims."
On Sunday, six people were killed in Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue and 81 were injured in the attack.
One Syrian female suspect Ahlam al-Bashir was arrested by the Turkish security forces.
The Turkish police claimed she entered Turkey through the Kurdish town of Afrin, which has been occupied by Turkish-backed Syrian rebel forces and the Turkish army since 2018.
Turkey SDF Turkey Istanbul attack PKK
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi on Monday denied SDF involvement in the Istanbul attack.
"We affirm that our forces have nothing to do with the Istanbul bombing, and we reject the allegations accusing our forces of that," he tweeted.
"We express our sincere condolences to the families of victims and the Turkish people, and we wish a speedy recovery for the injured."
The Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu Agency reported that Turkish Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu on early Monday blamed the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the People's Protection Units (YPG) and claimed the order was given in the Syrian Kurdish town of Kobani.
“Our assessment is that the order for the deadly terror attack came from Ayn al-Arab (Kobani) in northern Syria, where the PKK/YPG has its Syrian headquarters,” said Soylu.
“We will retaliate against those who are responsible for this heinous terror attack,” he added.
Moreover, the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK)-affiliated Headquarters Command of the People’s Defense Center on Monday also rejected involvement in the attack.
The PKK also offered "condolences to the relatives of the victims."
On Sunday, six people were killed in Istanbul’s Istiklal Avenue and 81 were injured in the attack.
One Syrian female suspect Ahlam al-Bashir was arrested by the Turkish security forces.
The Turkish police claimed she entered Turkey through the Kurdish town of Afrin, which has been occupied by Turkish-backed Syrian rebel forces and the Turkish army since 2018.
Turkey blames outlawed Kurdish group PKK for deadly İstanbul blast
November 14, 2022
Police members work at the scene after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 13, 2022. (Reuters)
Reuters, Istanbul
Published: 14 November ,2022:
Turkey’s government blamed Kurdish extremists on Monday for a blast that killed six people in Istanbul’s main shopping street, and said police had detained 22 suspects, including the person who had planted the bomb.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the order for the attack on Istiklal Avenue was given in Kobani, a city in northern Syria, where Turkish forces have carried out operations against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in recent years.
For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
Soylu added that the bomber had passed through Afrin, another region in northern Syria.
Six Turkish citizens, two members each of three families, were killed in the attack. No group has claimed responsibility.
Television news reports showed images of a person, who appeared to be a woman, leaving a package below a raised flower
bed on the historic Istiklal Avenue, a popular spot for shoppers and tourists with a tramline running its length.
Fifty people were discharged from hospital after Sunday’s attack, which sparked concerns that Turkey could be hit with more bombings and attacks, like the series that it suffered between mid-2015 and 2017.
Istanbul has been targeted in the past by Kurdish, and leftist extremists. An offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed twin bombings outside an Istanbul soccer stadium in December 2016 that killed 38 people and wounded 155.
Of those wounded on Sunday, two of the five people being treated in intensive care were in a critical condition, the Istanbul Governor’s office said. They were among the 31 wounded still in hospital.
Echoes of past attacks
Hundreds of people fled the avenue after the blast on Sunday, as ambulances and police raced in. The area, in the Beyoglu district of Turkey’s largest city, had been crowded as usual at the weekend.
Video footage obtained by Reuters showed the moment the explosion occurred at 4.13 p.m. (1313 GMT), sending debris into
the air and leaving several people lying on the ground, while others stumbled away.
Ankara says the YPG, which Washington has supported in the conflict in Syria, is a wing of the PKK.
Turkey has carried out three incursions in northern Syria against the YPG, including in 2019, seizing hundreds of kilometers of land. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said this year that Turkey will again target the YPG.
The PKK has led an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in
clashes. It is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
Condemnations of the attack and condolences for the victims poured in from several countries including the United States,
the European Union, Egypt, Ukraine, and Greece.
Turkish authorities linked support for the YPG by Washington and others to the blast.
The presidency’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said such attacks “are direct and indirect results of the support some countries give to terrorist organizations.”
Soylu likened the US condolences to “the murderer arriving as one of the first at the scene of the crime.”
November 14, 2022
Members of the crime scene investigation police (C) work as Turkish policemen secure the area after a strong explosion of unknown origin shook the busy shopping street of İstiklal in Istanbul, on November 13, 2022. -
Turkish President condemned the "vile attack" that ripped through central Istanbul, and said it killed six people and wounded over 80 others, on November 13, 2022. (Photo by Yasin AKGUL / AFP)
Turkey’s interior minister accused the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Monday of responsibility for a bombing in a busy İstanbul street that killed six people and wounded scores, saying more than 20 people have been arrested, Agence France-Presse reported.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan landed in the Indonesian resort island of Bali for a G20 summit of the world’s leading economies shortly after his government accused the PKK of being behind Sunday’s blast, which wounded 81.
He had called the bombing a “vile attack” before leaving for the summit and said it had a “smell of terror.”
The explosion tore through İstiklal Street, a popular shopping destination for locals and tourists, on Sunday afternoon. No individual or group has claimed the attack.
“The person who planted the bomb has been arrested,” interior minister Süleyman Soylu said in a statement broadcast by the official Anadolu news agency in the early hours of Monday.
He added that 21 others were also detained.
“According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organization is responsible,” he said.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara as well as its Western allies, has kept up a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s.
Soylu also accused PKK-affiliated Kurdish militants who control most of northeastern Syria and who are deemed as “terrorists” by Ankara of being responsible for the attack.
“We believe that the order for the attack was given from Kobane,” he said, referring to a city near the Turkish border. It was also the site of a 2015 battle between Kurdish militants and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists, who were driven out after more than four months of fighting.
Regularly targeted by Turkish military operations, the PKK is at the heart of a tussle between Sweden and Turkey, which has been blocking Stockholm’s entry into NATO since May, accusing it of leniency towards the group.
“We believe that it is a terrorist act carried out by an attacker, whom we consider to be a woman, exploding the bomb,” Turkey’s vice president Fuat Oktay said.
Justice minister Bekir Bozdağ told Turkish news channel A Haber that a woman “had been sitting on one of the benches for more than 40 minutes, and then she got up,” leaving a bag.
“One or two minutes later, an explosion occurred,” he said.
“There are two possibilities,” he said. “There’s either a mechanism placed in this bag and it explodes, or someone remotely explodes (it).”
“All data on this woman are currently under scrutiny,” he said.
Soylu’s announcement did not add any details about the woman or the suspects arrested.
İstiklal Avenue reopened early on Monday morning.
Mecit Bal, who runs a small shop a few meters from the scene, said his son was working at the time of the blast.
“My son was there. He called me and said an explosion happened. He will not go back to work today. He is psychologically affected,” he told AFP.
Panic, chaos
Turkish cities have been struck by Islamists and other groups in the past.
İstiklal Street was hit during a campaign of attacks in 2015-2016 that targeted İstanbul and other cities, including Ankara.
Those bombings were mostly blamed on the ISIL and outlawed Kurdish militants, and killed nearly 500 people and wounded more than 2,000.
Sunday’s explosion occurred shortly after 4:00 pm (1300 GMT) in the famous shopping street.
Helicopters flew over the city center after the attack. Police established a large security cordon to prevent access to the area for fear of a second explosion.
Images posted on social media showed the explosion was followed by flames and immediately triggered panic, with people running in all directions.
Several bodies were seen lying on the ground nearby.
“I was 50-55 meters away, suddenly there was the noise of an explosion. I saw three or four people on the ground,” witness Cemal Denizci, 57, told AFP.
“People were running in panic. The noise was huge. There was black smoke,” he said.
Condemnation
İstiklal, in the historic district of Beyoğlu, is one of the most famous arteries of İstanbul. It is entirely pedestrianized for 1.4 kilometers, or about a mile.
Criss-crossed by an old tramway and lined with shops and restaurants, it attracts large crowds at the weekend.
Many stores closed early in the neighboring district of Galata, while some passers-by, who came running from the site of the explosion, had tears in their eyes.
A massive deployment of security forces barred all entrances and rescue workers and police could be seen.
Turkey’s radio and television watchdog, RTÜK, placed a ban on broadcasters showing footage of the blast, a measure previously taken in the aftermath of extremist attacks.
Access to social media was also restricted after the attack.
A reaction came quickly from Greece, which “unequivocally” condemned the blast and expressed condolences to the government and people of Turkey.
The United States also denounced it, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying: “We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our NATO Ally Turkey in countering terrorism.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said in a message to the Turks: “We share your pain. We stand with you in the fight against terrorism”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also tweeted in Turkish: “The pain of the friendly Turkish people is our pain.”
Turkey’s interior minister accused the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) on Monday of responsibility for a bombing in a busy İstanbul street that killed six people and wounded scores, saying more than 20 people have been arrested, Agence France-Presse reported.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan landed in the Indonesian resort island of Bali for a G20 summit of the world’s leading economies shortly after his government accused the PKK of being behind Sunday’s blast, which wounded 81.
He had called the bombing a “vile attack” before leaving for the summit and said it had a “smell of terror.”
The explosion tore through İstiklal Street, a popular shopping destination for locals and tourists, on Sunday afternoon. No individual or group has claimed the attack.
“The person who planted the bomb has been arrested,” interior minister Süleyman Soylu said in a statement broadcast by the official Anadolu news agency in the early hours of Monday.
He added that 21 others were also detained.
“According to our findings, the PKK terrorist organization is responsible,” he said.
The PKK, blacklisted as a terrorist group by Ankara as well as its Western allies, has kept up a deadly insurgency for Kurdish self-rule in southeastern Turkey since the 1980s.
Soylu also accused PKK-affiliated Kurdish militants who control most of northeastern Syria and who are deemed as “terrorists” by Ankara of being responsible for the attack.
“We believe that the order for the attack was given from Kobane,” he said, referring to a city near the Turkish border. It was also the site of a 2015 battle between Kurdish militants and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) jihadists, who were driven out after more than four months of fighting.
Regularly targeted by Turkish military operations, the PKK is at the heart of a tussle between Sweden and Turkey, which has been blocking Stockholm’s entry into NATO since May, accusing it of leniency towards the group.
“We believe that it is a terrorist act carried out by an attacker, whom we consider to be a woman, exploding the bomb,” Turkey’s vice president Fuat Oktay said.
Justice minister Bekir Bozdağ told Turkish news channel A Haber that a woman “had been sitting on one of the benches for more than 40 minutes, and then she got up,” leaving a bag.
“One or two minutes later, an explosion occurred,” he said.
“There are two possibilities,” he said. “There’s either a mechanism placed in this bag and it explodes, or someone remotely explodes (it).”
“All data on this woman are currently under scrutiny,” he said.
Soylu’s announcement did not add any details about the woman or the suspects arrested.
İstiklal Avenue reopened early on Monday morning.
Mecit Bal, who runs a small shop a few meters from the scene, said his son was working at the time of the blast.
“My son was there. He called me and said an explosion happened. He will not go back to work today. He is psychologically affected,” he told AFP.
Panic, chaos
Turkish cities have been struck by Islamists and other groups in the past.
İstiklal Street was hit during a campaign of attacks in 2015-2016 that targeted İstanbul and other cities, including Ankara.
Those bombings were mostly blamed on the ISIL and outlawed Kurdish militants, and killed nearly 500 people and wounded more than 2,000.
Sunday’s explosion occurred shortly after 4:00 pm (1300 GMT) in the famous shopping street.
Helicopters flew over the city center after the attack. Police established a large security cordon to prevent access to the area for fear of a second explosion.
Images posted on social media showed the explosion was followed by flames and immediately triggered panic, with people running in all directions.
Several bodies were seen lying on the ground nearby.
“I was 50-55 meters away, suddenly there was the noise of an explosion. I saw three or four people on the ground,” witness Cemal Denizci, 57, told AFP.
“People were running in panic. The noise was huge. There was black smoke,” he said.
Condemnation
İstiklal, in the historic district of Beyoğlu, is one of the most famous arteries of İstanbul. It is entirely pedestrianized for 1.4 kilometers, or about a mile.
Criss-crossed by an old tramway and lined with shops and restaurants, it attracts large crowds at the weekend.
Many stores closed early in the neighboring district of Galata, while some passers-by, who came running from the site of the explosion, had tears in their eyes.
A massive deployment of security forces barred all entrances and rescue workers and police could be seen.
Turkey’s radio and television watchdog, RTÜK, placed a ban on broadcasters showing footage of the blast, a measure previously taken in the aftermath of extremist attacks.
Access to social media was also restricted after the attack.
A reaction came quickly from Greece, which “unequivocally” condemned the blast and expressed condolences to the government and people of Turkey.
The United States also denounced it, with White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre saying: “We stand shoulder-to-shoulder with our NATO Ally Turkey in countering terrorism.”
French President Emmanuel Macron said in a message to the Turks: “We share your pain. We stand with you in the fight against terrorism”.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also tweeted in Turkish: “The pain of the friendly Turkish people is our pain.”
Turkey blames Istanbul blast on Kurdish extremists; 22 held, including bomber
Police members work at the scene after an explosion on busy pedestrian Istiklal street in Istanbul, Turkey, on November 13, 2022. (Reuters)
Reuters, Istanbul
Published: 14 November ,2022:
Turkey’s government blamed Kurdish extremists on Monday for a blast that killed six people in Istanbul’s main shopping street, and said police had detained 22 suspects, including the person who had planted the bomb.
Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the order for the attack on Istiklal Avenue was given in Kobani, a city in northern Syria, where Turkish forces have carried out operations against the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in recent years.
For the latest headlines, follow our Google News channel online or via the app.
Soylu added that the bomber had passed through Afrin, another region in northern Syria.
Six Turkish citizens, two members each of three families, were killed in the attack. No group has claimed responsibility.
Television news reports showed images of a person, who appeared to be a woman, leaving a package below a raised flower
bed on the historic Istiklal Avenue, a popular spot for shoppers and tourists with a tramline running its length.
Fifty people were discharged from hospital after Sunday’s attack, which sparked concerns that Turkey could be hit with more bombings and attacks, like the series that it suffered between mid-2015 and 2017.
Istanbul has been targeted in the past by Kurdish, and leftist extremists. An offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) claimed twin bombings outside an Istanbul soccer stadium in December 2016 that killed 38 people and wounded 155.
Of those wounded on Sunday, two of the five people being treated in intensive care were in a critical condition, the Istanbul Governor’s office said. They were among the 31 wounded still in hospital.
Echoes of past attacks
Hundreds of people fled the avenue after the blast on Sunday, as ambulances and police raced in. The area, in the Beyoglu district of Turkey’s largest city, had been crowded as usual at the weekend.
Video footage obtained by Reuters showed the moment the explosion occurred at 4.13 p.m. (1313 GMT), sending debris into
the air and leaving several people lying on the ground, while others stumbled away.
Ankara says the YPG, which Washington has supported in the conflict in Syria, is a wing of the PKK.
Turkey has carried out three incursions in northern Syria against the YPG, including in 2019, seizing hundreds of kilometers of land. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has said this year that Turkey will again target the YPG.
The PKK has led an insurgency against the Turkish state since 1984 and more than 40,000 people have been killed in
clashes. It is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey, the European Union and the United States.
Condemnations of the attack and condolences for the victims poured in from several countries including the United States,
the European Union, Egypt, Ukraine, and Greece.
Turkish authorities linked support for the YPG by Washington and others to the blast.
The presidency’s communications director, Fahrettin Altun, said such attacks “are direct and indirect results of the support some countries give to terrorist organizations.”
Soylu likened the US condolences to “the murderer arriving as one of the first at the scene of the crime.”
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