Turkish investigators focus probe on IS militants

No group has claimed responsibility for the Ankara bombing and, since IS has in the past opportunistically claimed attacks in which it played no part, a few sceptics see the organisation as a convenient scapegoat for the government.

But Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, exposing a mosaic of domestic political perils, said Islamic State, Kurdish or far-leftist militants could have carried out the bombing.

“Like other terror attacks, the one at the Ankara train station targets our unity, togetherness, brotherhood and future”, said President Tayyip Erdogan, who has vowed to crush a Kurdish militant insurgency since the collapse of a ceasefire and resumption of intense violence in July.

Turkey is vulnerable to infiltration by Islamic State, which holds swathes of Syrian land abutting Turkey where a few two million refugees live.

He also denied that they were a result of Turkey’s involvement in war in Syria and that the government was dragging the country into the Middle Eastern quagmire.

“These attacks won’t turn Turkey into a Syria”, Davutoglu said.

The rally Saturday was organized by Turkish and Kurdish activists to call for increased democracy and an end to the renewed fighting between Turkey’s security forces and Kurdish rebels that has killed hundreds of soldiers, rebels and citizens since July. In the last election in June, a Kurdish party gained support from voters, taking away the ruling party’s majority in Parliament – and Erdogan wants that majority back.

The government meanwhile, raised the death toll in Turkey’s deadliest attack in years to 97 and said the victims included a Palestinian.

A few activists saw the hand of the state in all three attacks on Kurdish interests, accusing Erdogan and the AK Party he founded of seeking to stir up nationalist sentiment, a charge Turkey’s leaders have vehemently rejected.

“The doctors will attend funerals of those who lost their lives in Ankara”, a TTB official said.

Bodies covered by flags and banners, including those of the pro-Kurdish opposition Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP), lay scattered on the road among bloodstains and body parts.

The Saturday attack near Ankara’s main train station was carried out by two suicide bombers.

“There was general intelligence concerning a team called the “immortals” within Daesh (IS) making preparations, concerning preparations by the PKK”, Davutoglu said.

Analysts say the bombings inside Turkey could only make the parliamentary election results less conclusive, meaning government stability will depend on the political parties’ ability to form coalitions and cooperate – an elusive capacity as the country becomes more and more polarized.

On Sunday, police detained four more suspected Islamic State militants in a raid in the southern city of Adana, the regional governor’s office said Monday.

Turkey agreed recently to more actively support the U.S.-led battle against the Islamic State group, opening its bases to USA aircraft launching air strikes on the extremist group in Syria and carrying out a limited number of strikes on the group itself. Around 40 suspected ISIS militants have been arrested since the attack, but it is still unclear if there is any link to the bombings, and nobody has claimed responsibility.

The explosions also wounded 160 people in what was the worst attack of its kind in Turkey’s history.