Turkish police have arrested a suspect for the bombing in central Istanbul that left at least eight people dead and 81 others wounded, Al Jazeera reports. Interior minister Suleyman Soylu told reporters today that the suspect in custody was the “person who left the bomb that caused the explosion” on a busy thoroughfare in Turkey’s largest city.
Soylu blamed the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) for Sunday’s blast on Istiklal Avenue, saying: “Our assessment is that the order for the deadly terror attack came from Ayn al-Arab [Kobane] in northern Syria,” where he said the group has its Syrian headquarters.
“We will retaliate against those who are responsible for this heinous terror attack,” he said, adding that the death toll has risen from six to eight and that 81 people had been wounded, with two of them in “critical condition.”
No group has claimed responsibility for the blast yet.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan described the explosion as “treacherous” and said it “smells like terrorism.” Speaking before his departure to the G20 summit in Indonesia, Erdogan said initial information suggested that a “woman had played a part” in the attack.
The terrorist was a young Syrian woman named Ahlam Albashir trained by Kurdish terrorists and entered Turkey illegally.