The Istanbul explosion was caused by a suicide bomber from a border town. Authorities identify assailant as Turkish national a day after blast ripped through busy shopping street
On Saturday an explosion occurred in a busy area of Istanbul which resulted in the deaths of many people. Scores were also injured. Turkish authorities have revealed that the man responsible for the devastating blast was a Turk named Mehmet Ozturk who belonged to an area near the border with Syria. It was a suicide bombing as per the results of the initial investigations.
Officials have also revealed that Ozturk was a member of the Islamic State extremist group. The recent Istanbul blast has further aggravated terrorist threats in the heart of Turkey which is facing a dual war with Islamic State and Kurdish militants.
Four foreigners also perished in the Saturday blast which had occurred less than a week after another suicide bomber belonging to a Kurdish group had claimed thirty five innocent lives in the capital city of Ankara.
There have been a string of bombings and suicide attacks in Turkey which have claimed around 230 lives during the past few months.
No one had yet claimed responsibility for the attack on Saturday.
Islamic State has previously tried to target Turks and foreigners on Turkish soil in order to bring chaos to the country which is still trying desperately to tackle the Kurdish problem, and the spillover from neighboring Syria.
Two people who had American – Israeli dual nationalities, an Israeli and a person belonging to the Islamic Republic of Iran, were among the scores of wounded people. The rest of the people were from Iceland, Germany, Ireland and the Gulf Emirate.
A Kurdish group – an offshoot of the main Kurdistan Workers’ Party – had claimed responsibility for the attack in Ankara. The groups stated that the attack had been carried out in order to avenge the innocent Kurds killed by the Turkish government during its crackdown on insurgents.
People in Turkey are very angry with their government due to its inability to stop terrorists from carrying out attacks on its soil. Germany, an ally of Turkey within the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) had previously warned it about the coming attack.
American intelligence agencies had also warned turkey about a coming attack only two days before the Ankara bombing. The Americans had also highlighted the fact that Turkish security network had been breached.
