ANKARA, Turkey — A suspected jihadist terrorist attack killed at least 31 in Turkey's southeastern town of Suruc, on the country's border with Syria. More than 100 people were injured in the July 20 attack.
Interior Minister Sebahattin Ozturk announced that it was a terrorist attack. "We believe that it is a suicide bomb attack. No name has yet been designated concerning identity of the suicide bomber," Interior Minister Sebahattin Ozturk said.
There is speculation that the blast was caused by an 18-year-old female suicide bomber from the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), a violent jihadist group that has captured large swaths of land in Syria and Iraq since last summer.
"We will not only condemn this attack but we will also find those responsible and bring them to justice. This attack targeted peace, democracy and public order in Turkey," said Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu during a press conference in Ankara.
Davutoglu confirmed ISIS was the prime suspect, adding that 43 people, 9 nine of them with serious injuries, were hospitalized after the attack. He also called on all political parties to come together and issue a joint statement condemning terrorism.
The bomb exploded at a cultural center in Suruc where more than 300 members of the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations (SGDF), a pro-Kurdish leftist group, were having an event as part of a summer expedition to help rebuild Kobane, which lies directly across the Syrian border from Suruc.
Earlier this year the Kurdish militias fighting in northern Syria captured Kobane from ISIS.
Observers say the July 20 ISIS attack targeted both Turkey and the Kurds although the two are also hostile to each other.
Burak Ege Bekdil was the Turkey correspondent for Defense News.
