AFP
Ankara


Turkey yesterday sacked Ankara’s top police chief and two other officials as president Recep Tayyip Erdogan admitted security shortcomings over a double suicide bombing in the capital that killed 97.
There has been growing anger against Erdogan and the government for alleged security lapses over the worst attack in modern Turkey’s history in which two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of peace activists on Saturday.
Announcing the first dismissals in the wake of the disaster, the interior ministry said Ankara police chief Kadri Kartal as well the head of the city’s police intelligence and security departments had been removed from their posts.
It said they had been sacked on the suggestion of investigators “to allow for a healthy investigation” into the atrocity.
In his first public remarks on the bombings late Tuesday, Erdogan admitted there were security shortcomings and ordered the State Supervisory Council (DDK), an inspection body attached to the presidency, to undertake a special investigation.
Yesterday, Erdogan made his first visit to the site of the bombings outside Ankara’s main railway station, laying flowers for the victims alongside visiting Finnish president Sauli Niinisto.
The attack has raised political tensions to new highs as Turkey prepares for a snap election on November 1, with polarisation within the country now greater than ever.
The bombing targeted thousands of people gathering for a peace rally called by labour unions, leftist groups and pro-Kurdish activists over the government’s current offensive against Kurdish militants.
In protests held since the bloodshed, demonstrators have held up banners reading: “killer Erdogan” and “we know the killer!” although the authorities have angrily ridiculed claims of state complicity.
The government has said the Islamic State group is the prime suspect behind the bombings, which wounded more than 500 people.
Erdogan has said the attack had its roots in Syria, where IS militants have captured swathes of territory up to the Turkish border.
There have been growing indications that the authorities are focussing on possible parallels or even links to a July 20 suicide bombing at a peace rally in Suruc on the Syrian border -- also blamed on IS -- that killed 34 people.
The Hurriyet daily said the authorities now believe one of the Ankara suicide bombers was Yunus Emre Alagoz, brother of the Suruc bomber Abdurrahman Alagoz.
The other is believed to be Omer Deniz Dundar who had twice been to Syria since 2013, it said, adding that both had arrived in Ankara in two separate cars from the southeastern city of Gaziantep near the Syrian border.
Federal prosecutors in Ankara immediately slapped a ban on reporting any details of the investigation, the official Anatolia news agency said.
Over the weekend and on Monday, police arrested dozens of people with suspected links to the IS group in cities stretching from the Mediterranean resort of Antalya to the southern city of Adana.
Turkey’s Nato allies have long pointed the finger at Ankara for not taking a tougher line as IS militants seized swathes of northern Iraq and Syria.
But following months of Western pressure, Turkey is now a full member of the US-led coalition against IS and allowing American jets to use its Incirlik air base for raids, potentially making it a more likely target for IS attacks.
Turkish officials said two people with alleged links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) had been detained on suspicion of having prior knowledge of the attack and sharing the information nine hours beforehand on Twitter.
“This is an interesting turn of events,” an official told AFP. “We are questioning how they can have had advance knowledge.”
In a statement, the government said the @DrBereday account -- which has been closed -- had predicted that bombs would explode in Ankara.
Turkish prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said Saturday’s bombing of an Ankara rally of pro-Kurdish activists and civic groups was intended to undermine his ruling AK Party at November 1 polls and deny it votes needed to form a majority government.
“We are working on (investigating) two terrorist organisations, Daesh (Islamic State) and PKK, because we have certain evidence regarding the suicide bombers having links with Daesh, but also some linkages with PKK groups,” Davutoglu said in an interview in Istanbul.
“Some suspects were in Syria for many months.”
He rejected criticism that the authorities had not been robust in rounding up suspected jihadists and described as untrue reports that the father of one of the main Ankara suspects had alerted the authorities about his son’s radicalisation a year ago and that nothing had been done.
Pressure has piled on Turkey, not least from Nato allies who see it as a bulwark against Middle East turmoil, to do more to seal its 900km border with Syria.