Turkey said on Monday it had arrested 46 people, including the perpetrator, in relation to the deadly bomb attack in central Istanbul at the weekend, which left six people dead.
Photos and video posted by Turkish media showed police storming an apartment where they held a Syrian woman named Ahlam Albashir, whom they claimed had left an explosives-filled bag on a bench along Istiklal Street, a mile-long pedestrian avenue filled with shops, cultural sites and diplomatic outposts.
Photos showed police grabbing Ms Albashir, who was dressed in a purple hoodie emblazoned with the words “New York”, and taking her into custody.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. But Turkish interior minister Suleyman Soylu blamed Syria-based Kurdish militant groups, which issued statements strenuously denying responsibility for the attack.
The bombing killed six Turkish citizens, including a father and his three-year-old daughter. It shocked the nation and dominated headlines and news broadcasts.
On Monday morning, passers-by left red carnations at the site of the bombing in remembrance of the dead and their families.
“We will retaliate against those who are responsible for this heinous terror attack,” Mr Soylu said, according to the state-run Anadolu news agency.
Istiklal Street is one of the most heavily surveilled parts of Turkey, under the scrutiny of a wide network of private and government security cameras. It is constantly patrolled by plainclothes informants and officers, as well as by conspicuous contingents of heavily armed police.
Turkey’s justice minister Bekir Bozdag said the suspect sat on a bench near the scene of the blast for more than 40 minutes before the explosion, which took place minutes after she walked away. Authorities claim that the woman disclosed that she had been trained by Syrian Kurdish armed groups.
“There are two possibilities,” Mr Bozdag told news channel A Haber. “There was a bomb set up inside a bag. Either she detonated it, or someone detonated remotely.”
The consulates of France, Russia, Greece, Sweden, the Netherlands and Greece lie along Istiklal Street, while the United Kingdom’s sprawling diplomatic outpost is nearby.
Turkey has suffered numerous terrorist attacks over the years, including an Isis suicide bombing on the same street in 2016. The attacks often prompt security worries that tend to rally the public to the side of the authorities.
Mr Soylu claimed that the attack had been ordered by the People’s Union Party (PYD), an affiliate of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), both of which are considered terrorist organisations by Ankara. Without citing evidence, he claimed that the bombing had been ordered by PYD officials in Kobane, a crucial city under the control of Syrian Kurds and also known as Ayn al-Arab.
“Our assessment is that the order for the deadly terror attack came from Ayn al-Arab in northern Syria, where the PKK/YPG has its Syrian headquarters,” Mr Soylu said.
On Monday, both the PKK and the Syrian Democratic Forces, an umbrella group that includes the PYD, strongly rejected any suggestion that they had been involved in the attack. “Our people and the democratic public know well that we don’t have anything to do with this attack,” said a statement from the PKK published by the Firsat news agency. “We will not directly target civilians, and we do not accept actions targeting civilians.”
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who is currently in Indonesia for the G20 summit, has been lobbying Iran and Russia, both powerbrokers in Syria, to greenlight a Turkish attack on Kobane and other northern Syrian cities under the control of Kurds. The attack may increase momentum for some kind of military response.
”I don’t think there will be any kind of widespread operation launched without the commander-in-chief in the country,” said Yusuf Erim, an analyst for TRT World, Turkey’s publicly funded news channel. “I do think the long-spoken-of cross-border operation is definitely back on the agenda, and very high on the agenda.”
Sunday’s bombing could have political implications ahead of crucial elections due to take place in June 2023. President Erdogan and his Justice and Development Party are polling poorly against a coalition of opposition groups led by the Republican People’s Party (CHP).
Devlet Bahceli, leader of a far-right party that is part of Mr Erdogan’s government, demanded the shuttering of the country’s main Kurdish-led opposition party, the Democratic People’s Party (HDP), and accused the CHP of backing the PKK. Meanwhile, CHP-affiliated news outlets accused the government of wooing the HDP in the weeks preceding the bombing.
Mr Soylu also sought to implicate the United States in the bombing, accusing Washington of backing the PKK. The US and other Western countries collaborate with Syrian Kurds in their efforts to contain Isis. Mr Soylu likened Washington’s public condemnation of the bombing to “the killer arriving as one of the first to the scene of the crime”.
The attack could also have international consqequences. As a Nato member, Turkey has long complained that other partners in the alliance fail to address its security concerns adequately. Turkey has demanded that Finland and Sweden crack down on what it perceived as their harbouring of PKK sympathisers and supporters, as a precondition of granting them rapid accession to Nato.
Following the attack, “we might see a Turkey that is less willing to compromise” on Nato expansion, said one political insider.
