Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has vowed to bring those responsible for Sunday’s deadly car bomb in the capital to justice, saying that the country will bring “down terror to its heel.”
The explosion ripped through a busy square in the Turkish capital Sunday evening, killing dozens. In the hours following the attack, the number killed had increased to 37, Health Minister Mehmet Muezzinoglu said, according to Turkey’s semi-official Anadolu agency. A further 125 were injured in the blast.
“Terror organizations and their pawns are targeting our innocent citizens in the most immoral and heartless way as they lose the fight against our security forces,” Erdogan said in a statement.
“Terror attacks — which intend to target the integrity of Turkey, unity and solidarity of our people — do not diminish our will to fight against terror, but further boost it.”
The death toll could include one or two attackers, the health minister added
Scores of police cars, firefighters and medical personnel rushed to the scene. Security forces evacuated the area, the official Turkish news agency Anadolu reported.
“We condemn this terror attack. … People who carried out this attack will never succeed,” Interior Minister Efkan Ala said. “Turkey will overcome. Our determination to fight against terror will never be deterred by attacks like this.”
Authorities haven’t released details about who they believe was behind the blast.
“It’s too early to talk about who carried out this attack. The investigation is ongoing,” a senior Turkish official said. “Our priority right now is the wounded.”
Change of focus
Less than 24 hours after the bombings took place, Anadolu reported that Turkish jets had carried out airstrikes on what it described as “PKK bases” in northern Iraq.
CNN military analyst Rick Francona said that the attack, the latest in a line of deadly bombings in the capital attributed to the PKK, would precipitate change in the government’s stance.
Just ahead of the attack, curfews were also declared for two areas of southern Turkey, imposed “due to escalating terror activity in the region” and to ensure the “security of citizens’ lives and property,” according to the news agency, quoting statements from the governors’ offices of Hakkari and Mardin provinces.
“I’m not a fan of the Erdogan government, but I can see that they’re in a really tough position right now and something’s got to change.”
Assigning responsibility for the attack would be difficult, CNN intelligence and security analyst Robert Baer said. “There are so many Kurdish groups, affiliated with the PKK or not, assigning responsibility for this is going to be difficult. If it was Islamic State, same thing, or al Qaeda.”
He said that the attack could push Erdogan to take an even tougher stance toward Kurdish separatists.
“That sort of chaos (from Syria’s civil war) will migrate across borders and this is what we’re seeing here and I fear the worst for Turkey,” Baer said. “Erdogan is already a bit of an authoritarian and this is going to push him into a full-on war with the Kurds.”
Advance warning?
The explosion apparently targeted a transportation hub where bus stops and a metro station are located in the Kizilay neighborhood, Anadolu said.
A bombing that targeted military vehicles in the capital in February killed at least 28 people.
Last week, the U.S. Embassy in Ankara warned of a possible terrorist plot to strike government buildings in the capital’s Bahcelievler neighborhood, which is just a few minute’s drive from the square where Sunday’s explosion occurred.
“I suspect (the government) had some indication that there was going to be an attack but they couldn’t pin it down with the lack of a credible, specific threat, but they probably weren’t able to narrow it down; the US Embassy decided to err on the side of caution and go out and put out the warning anyway,” Francona said.
Media restrictions
Following the attack, Turkish authorities cracked down on what pictures and footage from the scene could be disseminated.
The Turkish Radio and Television Supreme Council banned the broadcast of any images showing the moment and direct aftermath of the explosion. It also barred showing graphic images and dead bodies at the scene of the attack.
It’s not yet clear if Facebook and Twitter were blocked.
The country’s Internet watchdog banned the release of video and photos of the incident on social media and some inside the country — including CNN’s team on the ground — could not access Facebook or Twitter for several hours after the blast.
Turkey has banned social media sites in the past.