ANKARA (Staff Report) – The terror group, ISIS, is the prime suspect in the Ankara bombings that killed nearly 100 on Saturday, Turkish PM Ahmet Davutoglu said on Monday.
Read more: Over 97 dead, 400 injured in Ankara twin blasts
“These attacks will not turn Turkey into a Syria,” Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in a statement.
No group has claimed the attack, but the government believes that two male suicide bombers caused the explosions, hitting a peace rally.
Davutoglu said the authorities were close to identifying one of the suicide bombers, and that this would help to pinpoint which group carried out the attack.
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He had previously said that IS, the PKK and far-left groups were all capable of such an attack.
Some 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.
There are also reports that investigators believe there are similarities between the device used in that attack and those used on Saturday.
Turkey announced after the Suruc bombing that it would allow its southern Incerlik airbase to be used by the US-led coalition targeting IS in Syria. Turkey, a Nato member, shares a long land border with its unstable southern neighbour.
The Ankara bombings are the deadliest in Turkey’s history. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is due to visit the country on Tuesday.
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The official death toll is 97, but one of the main groups at the march put the number of dead at 128. The funerals of more of the victims are taking place on Monday.
Saturday’s twin explosions ripped through a crowd of activists gathering outside the main railway station in the Turkish capital.
They were due to take part in a rally calling for an end to the violence between Turkish government forces and the militant Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
There is anger in Turkey that authorities were unable to prevent such a major attack in the heart of the capital city – and some scepticism from opposition groups about the government’s claims.
