Daesh ‘behind Ankara blasts to disrupt vote’

Armoured police vehicles patrol as they block a road leading to the site of armed clashes with militants in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, in this Oct. 26, 2015 photo.

Armoured police vehicles patrol as they block a road leading to the site of armed clashes with militants in Diyarbakir, southeastern Turkey, in this Oct. 26, 2015 photo.


A sleeper cell acting on orders from Daesh group carried out the massive bombings on a peace rally in Ankara this month to try to disrupt Turkey’s election, prosecutors said Wednesday.

The Ankara prosecutor’s office said there was “strong evidence” that the cell was also behind other attacks in the country, including one on the border with Syria in July, and was planning more atrocities.

“The cell received permission from the terrorist group in Syria to attack all PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party) and anti-Daesh targets inside Turkey,” it said in a statement, using the Arabic acronym for the IS group.

The Oct. 10 attack targeted a peace rally staged by pro-Kurdish activists and leftists, and was the worst ever on Turkish soil, killing 102 people and raising tensions ahead of this Sunday’s general election.

“Disrupting political stability by sabotaging the upcoming elections and complicating the formation of a government… that would emerge after the elections,” was one of the motives, the prosecutor’s statement said.

It said the sleeper cell was based in the southeastern province of Gaziantep which borders war-torn Syria.

The prosecutors said information extracted from electronic devices had revealed “crucial information” about the organization behind the carnage, including the flow of funds to cells in Turkey from bases in Syria.


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