The Turkish bombing

There are at least 41 dead and reportedly 140 injured in a gun-and-bomb attack on Istanbul’s Ataturk airport, one of the busiest in the world and a regional transit point as well as hub. The three attackers arrived by taxi and then tried to enter the departure area but were deterred by tight security. They fought with police, at least one of them being shot and wounded before he detonated his bomb vest. Security analysts say that had the terrorists been able to access the departure and check-in area (as was the case in Brussels) casualties would have been greater. This is cold comfort for the Turkish people, whose Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that early evidence points to the Islamic State (IS) as being the perpetrator of this latest atrocity rather than the PKK Kurdish nationalist group. This was by far the deadliest of the four attacks in Ankara this year. At the time of writing, there is no claim of ownership, but the attack does have the hallmarks of an IS operation and points to the group having a well-developed and resourced set of cells in Turkey.

Turkey is a country that has in the last decade become exposed to increasing levels of terrorist violence, some from home-grown groups such as Kurdish separatists and in the last five years as the spillover from the Syrian civil war. Tourism has declined, the economy suffered and the political polarities make it a deeply divided country. Violence between the PKK and government forces has increased dramatically in the last year after the collapse of the ceasefire, and hundreds of Turkish forces have been killed fighting the PKK. There are reports from across the country of a generalised sense of insecurity and attendance at the principal mosques in large cities is reportedly thin for the holy month of Ramazan amidst fears that they may be targeted. Despite numerous raids by security forces across the country, the bombers appear to be able to go about their business. Unless Turkish security agencies can seize the initiative, this is unlikely to be anything other than one event in a lengthening line.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 30^th, 2016.

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