At least 27 people have been killed, more than 100 wounded as an explosion rocked the Cultural Centre in the town of Suruc near Turkey’s borders with Syria.
Eye witnesses said that a suicide bomber blew up himself in the garden of the town’s Cultural Centre at around 12 p.m. (local time), during a meeting of volunteers coming from Istanbul and heading to the Syrian city of Kobani for relief work.
Suruc is home for more than 20,000 Syrian refugees (mostly Kurds from Kobani) who fled the nearly 5-year war in their country.
Immediately, the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has been blamed for the brazen attack. The hardline militants have been engaging in fierce fight against Syria’s Kurds nearly a year ago when the terror organization failed to take over Kobani in 2014.
Last month, ISIS militants infiltrated into Kobani after conducting twin suicide attacks, but were repelled later by Kurdish militiamen who, backed by US-led coalition airstrikes and smaller rebel groups, managed to seize Tal
Abyad on the Turkish borders earlier on June.
Residents of Suruc are aghast to be ISIS’ next target; shopkeepers and stores immediately closed up in fear of a second attack.
Turkey’s President Receep Tayyip Erdogan has condemned the bloody attack, describing it as “an act of terror”.
Turkey maintains an ‘open door’ policy for Islamic fighters from all over the world, willing to topple Syrian President Bashar al-Assad
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