The death toll in Saturday’s terrorist attack on a wedding ceremony in southeastern Turkey’s Gaziantep province rose to 54 Monday, according to a hospital source.
Three more people succumbed to their wounds at hospital, the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity due to restrictions over talking to the media, said.
The attack took place in Beybahce neighborhood of the Gaziantep province’s Sahinbey district at around 10.50 p.m. (1950GMT) on Saturday, according to the Gaziantep Governor’s Office.
There has been no claim of responsibility, but Turkish president said early signs point to Daesh’s involvement in the attack.
Speaking to reporters in Istanbul Sunday, Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a suicide bomber aged between 12 and 14 was involved in the attack, adding the bomber either blew himself up or was remotely detonated.
The Turklsh government blames ISIS for the attack. They haven’t claimed responsibility, but it’s plausible; similar tactics have been used in other ISIS-linked suicide bombings in Turkey, and ISIS has targeted Kurds to inflame Turkish/Kurdish tensions.
But Turkey also has a habit of being overly hasty in blaming groups for terrorist attacks (often to suit its own political ends). The government has already walked back its initial claim that the bomber was a 12- to 14-year-old child himself.
Turkey’s foreign minister has promised to “completely cleanse” the region of ISIS, and provide cover to moderate rebels. To that end, Turkey’s renewed attacks on ISIS over the Syrian border … as well as attacks on Kurdish militias who have been fighting ISIS.
But the Kurdish militias in at least one Syrian city have also started turning on their putative allies in the Syrian government — further scrambling one of the more complicated regions in a tangled war.
