Forensic experts collect a dead body after an explosion on Istanbul's popular pedestrian Istiklal Avenue on Sunday, Istanbul, Nov. 13, 2022. (Photo: AP)Istanbul Police Monday said it had detained 46 people over the bombing at Istiklal Avenue, the city’s main pedestrian thoroughfare, news agency Reuters reported. This includes Syrian woman Ahlam Albashir who is suspected to have planted the bomb.
In an initial questioning, the woman said she was trained by Kurdish militants in Syria and entered Turkey through northwest Syria’s Afrin region, the police said.
The explosion occurred around 4:13 PM (1313 GMT), leaving six Turkish residents dead. Others present on the bustling street before the attack fled the site, as ambulances and police vans arrived.
The Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu had blamed Kurdish militants from Kobani for the attack on Istanbul. He said, “We have evaluated that the instruction for the attack came from Kobani.” Kobani is a city in northern Syria, where Turkish forces have been carrying out operations against Syrian Kurdish YPG militants in the past years.
PKK, an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party has been internationally listed as a terrorist organisation by Turkey’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the United States and other members of the European Union, according to the country’s MFA website. YPG is a wing of the PKK.
The bomb explosion on Sunday left four dead at the scene and two at a hospital, according to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Speaking before his departure to the G-20 summit in Bali, Erdogan called the explosion something that “smells like terrorism”, and said that its perpetrators would be punished.
About 81 people were wounded following the attack. Fifty people have been discharged from hospital, sparking concerns of a string of deadly bombings in Istanbul, similar to the ones carried out by outlawed Kurdish groups between 2015 and 2017.
– with inputs from Reuters