ISTANBUL. The Turkish city was the victim of an explosion on the afternoon of Sunday November 13, 2022. During the night, 22 people including the main suspect were arrested and Turkey blamed the Kurdish organization PKK.
Very popular with families, the commercial artery of Istiklal in Istanbul shook under the blow of an explosion this Sunday, November 13, 2022, around 4 p.m. (2 p.m. in Paris). The street was quickly cordoned off for fear of another explosion and to facilitate the search for victims. At least six dead and eighty-one injured appear in the provisional toll of this “vile attack” as Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan calls it. This Monday, November 14, the Turkish government is advancing with certainty the name of the PKK as the organization behind the bomb attack. Sunday evening another forty-two people were hospitalized, including five in intensive care and two in critical condition according to the Minister of Health, Fahrettin Koca.
Who is the perpetrator of the Istanbul attack?
In the hours following the explosion qualified as an attack, the Turkish government announced that a woman suspected of being the bomber was arrested. In the evening from Sunday to Monday, the Minister of Justice of Turkey clarified the sequence of events and indicated that a “bag” was deposited near the site of the explosion by a “woman [qui était]sitting for forty to forty-five minutes and, some time later, an explosion” reports theAFP. The identity of the woman and main suspect was not specified but the minister said that “all data on this woman is being examined”. Regarding the contents of the bag several assumptions are made: either it contained “a timer” or the bomb was inside and was “remotely activated”.
In addition to the main suspect, twenty-one other people were arrested overnight. This Monday, November 14, Turkish Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu ruled that the attack was sponsored by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in particular the Kurdish forces located in northeastern Syria and more specifically in Kobané. , a Syrian city bordering Turkey
Is the Istanbul bombing a terrorist attack?
The Istanbul attack is considered as such only by the Turkish government. Since the explosion in the Istiklal neighborhood no organization has claimed responsibility for the bomb attack as a terrorist attack. But if, as announced by the Turkish capital Ankara, the PKK is indeed behind this explosion, it could be a terrorist act. Ankara but also the United States and the European Union consider the Kurdish group as a terrorist movement. Turkey and the PKK have been fighting each other since the 1980s and in recent years the Kurdish organization has been responsible for several deadly attacks.