Bombing at wedding party in southern Turkey kills at least 50

[Valin]

Times Live:

Aug 21 2016

 

At least 50 people were killed on Saturday when a suspected suicide bomber detonated his explosives among people dancing on the street at a wedding party in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, about 40 km (25 miles) from the Syrian border. President Tayyip Erdogan said it was likely that Islamic State militants carried out the late-night attack, the deadliest bombing this year in Turkey, which faces threats from militants at home and from Syria.

 

Just weeks ago, Erdogan and his government survived an attempted coup, which Ankara blames on U.S.-based Islamist preacher Fethullah Gulen. He has denied the charge. slamic State has been blamed for other attacks in Turkey, often targetting Kurdish gatherings in an effort to inflame ethnic tensions, and the deadliest previous one was last October at a rally of pro-Kurdish and labour activists in Ankara when suicide bombers killed more than 100 people.

 

Saturday's wedding party was for a member of the pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party, it said, and the groom was among those injured. The bride was not hurt, one local official said. Celebrations were ending at the traditional henna night party, when guests have decorative paint applied to their hands and feet. Some families had already left when the bomb went off but women and children were among the dead, witnesses said. Blood and burns marked the walls of the narrow lane where the blast hit. Women in white and checkered scarves cried, sitting crosslegged outside the morgue waiting for word on missing relatives.

 

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