Turkey: Woman suspected of carrying out Istanbul attack arrested

A person was arrested on suspicion of planting the bomb that exploded on Sunday in a central street in Istanbul and that caused at least six deaths and 81 injuries, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu reported today.

Preliminary data suggest that the terrorist group Kurdistan Workers’ Party/People’s Protection Units (PKK/YPG) is behind the attack on the busy pedestrian avenue of Istiklal, the minister said at a briefing early Monday, according to public television TRT. The PKK has been seeking since 1984 to create an independent Kurdish state.

(Also read: Turkey: terrorist bomb attack left at least six dead and 53 injured).

Hours earlier, the Turkish Vice President, Fuat Oktay, said at a press conference on Sunday that the authorities evaluated “that it was a terrorist attack committed by a woman who detonated a bomb.”

The Minister of Justice, Bekir Bozdag, advanced earlier, in statements on the channel to havea hypothesis according to which a woman had placed a bag with an explosive in the middle of the pedestrian before walking away.

“There was a woman who was sitting on a bench for a long time, more than 40 minutes, then she got up and 1-2 minutes later the explosion occurred,” said the minister, adding that the woman’s identity was still unknown.

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“There are two possibilities. Either there was a mechanism (timer) in the bag or backpack and it goes off by itself, or someone detonates it from a distance,” he added.

Bozdag pointed out that the involvement of several terrorist organizations is being evaluated, but that at the moment it could not be attributed to any, and that more would be known when the explosive used and the identity of the aforementioned woman have been investigated.

The Istiklal street, a pedestrian avenue full of shopswhich starts in the emblematic Taksim Square, is full of passers-by at all hours, including many tourists.

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In 2016 there were several terrorist attacks in Turkey, most of them from networks of the Islamic State jihadist group, in Istanbul, one of them in Istiklal street itself. However, after the massacre caused by a jihadist on New Year’s Eve of that year in a nightclub on the banks of the Bosphorus, there were no more attacks in the city.

The US reaffirms its alliance with Turkey to combat terrorism after the Bali attack

The United States reaffirmed on Monday its alliance with Turkey to combat terrorism after the bomb attack that caused at least 6 deaths and 81 injuries this Sunday, two of them in serious condition, in the central Istiklal street in Istanbul.

“The United States strongly condemns the act of violence that took place in Istanbul, Turkey. Our thoughts are with those who were injured and we send our deepest condolences to those who lost loved ones,” the spokeswoman for the United States said in a statement. White House, Karine Jean-Pierre.

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“We stand shoulder to shoulder with our NATO ally Turkey in the fight against terrorism,” added the spokeswoman, who is in Bali with the US President Joe Biden, who will participate in the G20.

Turkey is one of Washington’s key allies in the Atlantic Alliance, especially for its help in the fight against terrorism in the Middle East.

EFE