Attacks in Turkey spark escalation in Syria

A auto laden with explosives detonated next to military buses as they waited at traffic lights near Turkey armed forces’ headquarters in the administrative heart of Ankara late on Wednesday.

According to the Turkish presidency’s statement, Obama condemned the bomb attack in the Turkish capital Ankara Wednesday that left 28 people dead and 81 others injured.

Turkey considers the three Kurdish groups to be terror outfits but the US designates only the PKK as a terrorist organization and regards the YPG as a “reliable partner” in northern Syria fighting Daesh.

President Tayyip Erdogan also said initial findings suggested the Syrian Kurdish militia and the PKK were behind the bombing and said that 14 people had been detained.

He also blamed the government of President Bashar Assad for allegedly supporting the Syrian Kurdish militia.

“The first opponent for Ankara in Syria is the Assad regime and the second opponent is the PYD, the de facto Kurdish political entity right now running northern Syria”, Metin Gurcan, an independent security analyst in Istanbul and a former major in the Turkish military’s special forces, told VOA. The report could not be independently verified.

The Kurdish group denies any involvement in the bombing.

The group claimed that the perpetrator of the Ankara attack was Abdulbaki Sonmez, born in eastern Van province of Turkey.

“I’d like to warn Russian Federation, which is giving air support to the YPG in its advance on Azaz, not to use this terrorist group against the innocent people of Syria and Turkey”, he said.

The Kurdistan Freedom Hawks, despite severing its ties with the PKK, has also been labeled a terrorist organization by the USA and Turkey.

It was latest in a string of deadly strikes that have rocked Turkey since last summer and one of the deadliest assaults targeting the military in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member state in recent years.

Ankara appears increasingly uneasy over the group’s recent gains across its border and has continued to shell the militia despite global calls for it to stop. Maintaining this line, Davutoglu said, “Those who directly or indirectly support a group hostile to Turkey will risk losing their status as a friend”. Pentagon officials said at the time one had fallen into the hands of Islamic State.

In an interview published by pro-PKK media on Wednesday, PKK commander Cemil Bayik said he did not know who carried out the Ankara attack but said it could have been “revenge for the massacres” in Kurdish areas.

A collapsed ceasefire with the PKK back after two years of relative peace in July has sparked a flare-up of violence, attacks and government crackdowns. The fighting has displaced tens of thousands in the southeast as Turkey carried out large-scale military operations against PKK-linked militants.

On the ground, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) alliance seized the northeastern town of Al-Shadadi from IS, with backing from US-led air strikes, a monitor and Kurdish sources said.

It has aided the PYD, the Syrian-based Kurds, because it has fought reliably against the Islamic State group.