ISIL said on Friday that it was behind a car bombing that killed nine people in Kurdish-dominated southeastern Turkey, according to US-based monitors.
"An insider source for Amaq Agency: Fighters from the Islamic State detonated an explosives-laden vehicle parked in front of a Turkish police headquarters in Diyarbakir in southeastern Turkey," the SITE Intelligence Group said, citing Amaq, which is a name ISIL often uses when claiming responsibility for attacks.
In an audio message released earlier this week, reclusive ISIL leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi broke a nearly year-long silence to call for attacks against Turkey, as well as Saudi Arabia, and for his fighters to hold their ground in their stronghold of Mosul, Iraq.
Ankara has troops stationed at a base just outside Mosul and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's escalating rhetoric has raised fears of an expanded Turkish military intervention in Iraq.
"[The attack] could be retaliation by [ISIL] for the fact that Turkey is now participating in the coalition against [ISIL]," Bulent Aliriza, the director of the Turkey Project and senior associate at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, told Al Jazeera.
Aliriza said, though, that Turkish support of Syrian opposition fighters "effectively prevented the establishment of a Kurdish belt across northern Syria, and that was something that must have annoyed the YPG".
No comments:
Post a Comment