Turkey: Ankara bombing blamed on Islamic State

Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said today that the Islamic State (IS) is the focus of the probe into a twin suicide bombing that killed at least 97 people in the country’s capital Ankara on Saturday and that investigators are close to identifying one of the suspects.

Turkey’s deputy prime minister says the two suicide bombers of the Ankara peace rally blew themselves up by each exploding 5 kilograms (11 pounds) of TNT.

Declaring three days of mourning, Davutoglu said there were “strong signs” the attack was carried out by two suicide bombers.

Ahmet Davutoglu also said in an interview with private NTV television that the evidence pointed to a “certain group” which he refused to identify.

Burak Kara/Getty images Selahattin Demirtas, leader of the pro-Kurdish Democratic Party of Peoples (HDP), hugs a relative of victims.

A few local media have implicated the brother of a man who carried out an IS bombing in the southern border town of Suruc in July, which killed more than 30 people.

The Turkish government has rejected the PKK’s ceasefire and is continuing to attack it.

President Tayyip Erdogan vowed that the elections will continue, though opponent groups blame him for stirring a nationalist campaign against the Kurdish militants, and provoking such an attack.

“Postponing the elections as a result of the attack is not on the table at all, even as an option”, said a government source.

Several thousand people, mostly Kurds, demonstrated in Paris and Brussels over the weekend protesting the violence against Kurds and condemning the Ankara attacks.

Unrest continued elsewhere in the mainly Kurdish region, with the historic Sur district of Diyarbakir city remaining under round-the-clock curfew for the third day on Monday after police on Sunday fired tear gas to prevent protesters entering the district, witnesses said.

Also on Sunday, pro-Kurdish activists held a similar rally in the German city of Leipzig to show their solidarity with the victims of the Saturday twin bombings in Ankara.

The Turkish government has been a frequent combatant of the PKK militant group since their ceasefire ended in July.

The scale of the attacks was bigger than the one in 2003, which was blamed on al-Qaeda, when two synagogues, the Istanbul HSBC Bank headquarters and the British consulate were hit, killing 62 people.

President Erdogan called the elections in the hope they will restore the AK party, which he founded, to an overall parliamentary majority.