IS, ‘far-left militants’ emerge as suspects of Turkey blasts

Hours after a bomb blast killed at least 95 people in the Turkish capital, Ankara, the country’s prime minister, Ahmet Davutoglu, said Islamic State, Kurdish, or far-leftist militants could have carried out the bombing.

Investigators have so far failed to identify the perpetrators of a terrorist attack on a pro-Kurdish peace rally in the capital city. Twin explosions thought to have been triggered by suicide bombers targeted the march, near Ankara’s main train station, on Saturday morning.

The attack also left 246 wounded, 48 of whom are intensive care, according to an updated toll announced by Prime Minister Davutoglu’s office.

Davutoglu said no one had claimed responsibility for the bombings, but that groups, including the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and the far-left Revolutionary People's Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) were capable of carrying out such an attack.

The resulting death toll made it the deadliest attack in Turkish history and has sparked three days of national mourning. The death toll surpassed that of the May 2013 twin bombings in Reyhanli on the Syrian border that killed over 50 people.

The attack, which occurred three weeks before elections, has also fuelled unease in a country beset by conflict between state forces and Kurdish militants.

Bodies of slain demonstrators were seen strewn across the ground after the explosions, with the banners they had been holding for the "Work, Peace and Democracy" march lying next to them.

Turkey's pro-Kurdish Peoples' Democratic Party (HDP), one of the groups that called for the peace rally, put the death toll at 128 in a tweet from their official account, but this figure was not confirmed by the government. Among those killed was HDP member Kubra Meltem Mollaoglu, who was standing for parliament in the upcoming polls.

“We are in mourning for peace,” said the front-page headline in the secularist Cumhuriyet newspaper as three days of national mourning declared by the prime minister got under way. Other papers voiced public anger over the attack.

“Scum attacked in Ankara,” said the Haberturk newspaper. “The goal is to divide the nation,” said the pro-government Star.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan denounced what he called a “heinous attack” targeting “our unity and our country's peace”.

One of the bombers had been identified as a male aged 25-30 after analysing bodies at the scene and taking fingerprints, the pro-government Yeni Safak said.

There were no claims of responsibility for the attack, which came as external threats mount for Nato member Turkey with increased fighting across its border with Syria and incursions by Russian warplanes on its air space over the last week. the bombing..

The two blasts happened seconds apart on Saturday morning as crowds, including pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic party (HDP) activists, leftists, labour unions and other civic groups, gathered for a march to protest over the deaths of hundreds since conflict resumed between security forces and the Kurdistan Workers party (PKK) in the mainly Kurdish south-east.