Monday, May 2, 2016

A car bomb detonated at police headquarters in Gaziantep, Turkey yesterday morning killed two police officers and injured more than twenty other people. The governor’s office said nineteen of the injured were police officers. Police said they suspect an alleged Daesh (ISIL) militant of responsibility for the attack.

Turkish media reported two police officers, Yusuf Evrin and Serdar ?akir, spotted the bomb in the vehicle as the driver approached the building. The officers opened fire on the driver before the bomb exploded.

This follows another suicide bombing in Istanbul four days earlier that wounded several people, and three other militant attacks this year in Turkish cities populated with high numbers of tourists. Daesh have not claimed responsibility for any of these attacks.

Turkish police claim to have found evidence linking the suspect to Daesh and conducted a raid on his home. They took the suspect’s father in for questioning and DNA testing, in an attempt to confirm the bomber’s identity.

The US-led coalition against Daesh, of which Turkey is a member, carried out airstrikes in Syria last Thursday. Gaziantep is near the Syrian border and a city official estimated to news website The Conversation the area harbors as many as 400,000 Syrian refugees. Suspected Daesh militants amongst them have recently been subjected to police raids.

Foreign travel advisories are warning tourists of an increased threat of terrorist attacks in Turkey.