Bomb attack in Ankara on March 13, 2016

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The crime scene, Kızılay Square

The bomb attack in Ankara on March 13, 2016 , to which a splinter group of the terrorist organization PKK claimed responsibility , occurred at 6:45 pm local time ( UTC +2) in Kızılay Square at a bus stop. Most of the 38 people killed in the attack were civilians.

Warning

The US embassy had already issued a terror warning for the area around Kızılay Square on March 11, 2016, as information about a planned attack was available.

Sequence of events

According to the Turkish news agency Anadolu , the two suicide bombers , the 24-year-old student Seher Çağla Demir and a man named Özgür Ünsal, drove a stolen white BMW to the bus stop near the metro station between two fully occupied buses and brought their vehicle loaded with TNT to there Explosion. The assassins and 35 other people were killed by glass and metal fragments. More than 120 people were injured.

The attack was the third attack in Ankara's city center in five months.

  • Pictures from the scene of the attack (March 13, 2016)
  • Ankara Kızılay'da Patlama 10 13-March-2016.jpg
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Information about the victims that became known

Rescue workers at work at the scene of the explosion on March 13, 2016

The attack occurred in the city center of Kızılay, the most crowded and busiest place in the Turkish capital Ankara, which is used by millions of people as a transit point to get to other destinations. Based on information from the news media, institutions and relatives of the victims, information on the names and living conditions of the victims was published:

38 people were killed in the attack. According to media reports on March 14, the total of at least 37 people who died in the attack included Muharrem Çermik, Bağdat Çermik, Perihan Çermik, Berkay Baş, Ozancan Akkuş, Destina Peri Parlak, Elvin Buğra Arslan, Mehmet Yurtsever, Kemal Bulut, Zeynepoy Başak Gülsak, Nüsrettin Can Çalkınsın, Feyza Acısu, Mehmet Emre Çakar, Elif Gizem Akkaya, Turgay Bulut, Dorukhan Yusuf Özdemir, Eyüp Ensar Ulaş, Kerim Sağlam, Nevzat Alagöz, Murat Gülğ, Atakan Eray Eray Özyol, Hamide Sarn Soydan, Kemal Kalıç, Taner Kılıç, Sümeyra Çakmak, Ferah Önder, Cemal Özdiker, Yaşar Durakoğlu, Ayşe Bilgilioğlu, Fehmi Çetinkaya and Sevinç Gökay. According to the Ministry of Health, 36-year-old Feyyaz Aydın, who suffered shrapnel injuries in the attack and had both legs amputated , succumbed to his wounds in Ankara Teaching and Research Hospital on March 21 .

Kemal Bulut was the father of the Turkish national soccer team player and professional contract player for Galatasaray Istanbul , Umut Bulut . According to Turkish media reports, Kemal Bulut is said to have been the victim of the attack on his way home from the stadium on May 19 , where his son and Galatasaray played against the Ankara football club Gençlerbirliği Ankara .

Mehmet Yurtsever, former CHP head of the Keçiören district of Ankara, had waited at a shared taxi stop at Güvenpark to drive home after a CHP event.

Muharrem, Çermik and Perihan Çermik lost their lives at the bus stop, where they were waiting for the bus. Also Zeynep Başak Gülsoy and Nüsrettin Can Çalkınsın, both students of jurisprudence , were killed as they waited for the bus in front of the Güvenpark. Other fatalities who had waited for a bus included 20-year-old Feyza Acısu, a student at Gazi University , who was on her way home after attending a class, 16-year-old student Mehmet Emre Çakar and the 58-year-old Cemal Özkider. The 23-year-old Kerim Sağlam, a student at Eskişehir Osmangazi University , had been waiting for the bus at the bus stop in Kızılay and was on his way to see a family member. The 26-year-old Murat Gül was an employee of a private security service in the Ministry of Finance and had been waiting for the bus at the bus stop on the way home from work. The 22-year-old graduate of Fatih University's chemistry faculty , Sümeyra Çakmak, was studying for her master's degree and was waiting at the bus stop on her way to a class.

The family man Eyüp Ensar Ulaş was killed in the bus on the way home from work when the vehicle loaded with explosives exploded on Ataturk Boulevard in front of Güvenpark.

After Ozancan Akkuş, a student, died in the attack, a photo of him and his friend Ali Deniz Uzatmaz, who was killed in the attack in Ankara on October 10, 2015 during a peace demonstration, became known to the public .

The 42-year-old family man Nevzat Alagöz was a police officer and was used in the Gençlerbirliği-Galatasaray game at the stadium on May 19 before losing his life on the way home. Hamide Sibel Çetinkaya, a 55-year-old family mother who works at the Ministry of National Education Information Center , wanted to take the minibus on the way home after getting off the subway in Kızılay.

Berkay Baş and Ozancan Akkuş were students at the Middle East Technical University (ODTÜ). Elif Gizem Akkaya was also a university student. Turgay Bulut had worked as a taxi driver. Dorukhan Yusuf Özdemir was the youth captain of the basketball team at Ankara Altınel Sports Club. The 15-year-old student Atakan Eray Özyol was also killed in the explosion. The 26-year-old Mehmet Alan had worked in the Natural History Museum. Oğuzhan Dura had worked as Chief Supervisor of the General Directorate for Foundations. Erdem Soydan was killed in a taxi when the explosion broke out. Taner Kılıç was working as a tea maker in an office when he was killed in the explosion. Kemal Kalıç was a retired sergeant major. Ferah Önder worked as an engineer for the General Directorate for Agrarian Reform. The 69-year-old Yaşar Durakoğlu was vice principal at the Bahçelievler-Deneme-Gymnasium in Ankara and a teacher of art history.

According to media reports, the parents of two fatalities, 16-year-old tenth grader Destina Peri Parlak and 19-year-old ANKA Institute member Elvin Buğra Arslan, accused the Turkish government of being responsible for the attack through government policies.

  • Commemoration and clean-up work at the site of the attack (March 15, 2016)
  • Ankara Yaralarını Sarıyor After Ankara Kızılay Bombing of 13 March 2016 VOA 15-March-2016 3.jpg
  • Ankara Yaralarını Sarıyor After Ankara Kızılay Bombing of 13 March 2016 VOA 15-March-2016 1.jpg
  • Ankara Yaralarını Sarıyor After Ankara Kızılay Bombing of 13 March 2016 VOA 15-March-2016 4.jpg
  • Ankara Yaralarını Sarıyor After Ankara Kızılay Bombing of 13 March 2016 VOA 15-March-2016 6.jpg
  • Ankara Yaralarını Sarıyor After Ankara Kızılay Bombing of 13 March 2016 VOA 15-March-2016 7.jpg

Investigations and Law Enforcement

After the first police investigations at the scene of the crime, a news blackout was imposed, as is customary in such cases in Turkey. Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said there was "concrete information about the terrorist group behind the attack". In connection with the crime, eleven people were arrested the following day. According to the investigation, there were at least two assassins, a woman and a man. As a result, seer Çağla Demir (* 1992 in Kars ) blew himself up with a stolen vehicle. According to the Turkish Interior Ministry, she joined the PKK in 2013 and then received terror training in Syria from the YPG , which form the military arm of the PYD , are viewed as the Syrian - Kurdish representative of the Turkish-Kurdish PKK and at the time of the incident with Western states in fight against the militant - jihadist terrorist organization of IS were allied in Syria. The second suicide bomber was identified as Özgür Ünsal. The authorities are now assuming a third male assassin.

Role of TAK and PKK

The Kurdish extremist group Teyrêbazên Azadîya Kurdistan (German: "Freedom Falcons Kurdistan", abbreviation: TAK), about which little was known at the time of the attack and which is a splinter group of the PKK, which is classified as a terrorist organization , confessed a few days after the Acted on the attack. On its website, the TAK presented the bomb attack as a retaliatory measure for the offensive by Turkish security forces in the intensified conflict with the PKK in the south-east of the area, which the TAK described as the "massacre in Kurdistan". The TAK threatened further attacks and wrote on its website that human lives would not be safe in Turkey until the “fascist dictatorship” was “razed to the ground”. The TAK had already assumed responsibility for the suicide bomb attack in Ankara on February 17, 2016 and threatened to want to "destroy" tourism, which is important for Turkey, with further attacks .

According to the assessment of security experts, the TAK, which had split off from the PKK a decade earlier, still had connections with the PKK at the time of the attacks in Ankara in February and March 2016. Observers suspect that the PKK had set up the TAK itself for attacks in cities in western Turkey, while it fought itself with the military in the south-eastern mountain areas. The extent to which the TAK acted independently of the PKK is not known. The journalist Özlem Topçu described it at the time as "difficult to imagine" that the PKK, "which does not tolerate any other organization besides itself, does not want to have control over the TAK" and as undoubtedly "that the TAK consciously wants to kill civilians".

The Dutch journalist Frederike Geerdink had answered a PKK spokesman at headquarters in the northern Iraqi Qandil mountains, the PKK does not possess any information about the TAK, but the TAK had "spoken to Erdoğan in the language he understands." A little later, the incumbent PKK leader Cemil Bayık , alluding to the deaths of civilians during the fighting in cities such as Diyarbakır , Cizre or Silopi , announced that the TAK attacks could have been “retaliation for the massacres in Kurdistan”.

Two days after the March 13 attack in Ankara, Bayık announced in an interview with the Times that the PKK wanted to expand the war. The main goal is to bring Erdoğan and the ruling party AKP down. Turkey could not become democratic “with them”. Bayık asserted with allusion to the Kurdish population: "Our people want revenge, they want the guerrillas to retaliate for them." Bayık, one of the most wanted terrorists, had threatened several times in the previous months, like in December 2015, that the PKK- Guerrillas would invade the cities if the Turkish government were to expand the war against the PKK. The two attacks by the PKK splinter group TAK in the center of Ankara in February and March 2016 with a total of 66 dead were interpreted as the realization of this threat. Various Turkish political scientists took the view that the PKK was clearly pursuing the goal of creating chaos and bringing Turkey - similar to Syria - into a failed state . The political scientist and security expert Sedat Laçiner from Çanakkale University saw the attacks in Ankara as "part of a strategy with which the PKK wants to transform Turkey into a kind of second Syria". The fact that the terrorists loaded a car with 300 kg of explosives in the middle of the city center clearly shows that they wanted to expand terrorism in order to make Turkey ungovernable in a complete chaos, as their goals and aspirations for autonomy in a failed state like Libya or Reaching Syria far more easily than in a strong, centrally-run state.

Follow-up events

The Turkish Air Force bombed, according to Army information after the attack hideouts and arms caches of the PKK in northern iraq , the Kandil Mountains is considered a refuge of PKK fighters.

See also

Web links

Commons : March 2016 Ankara bombing  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c d Ankara attack was retaliation for "massacre in Kurdistan," group says ( Memento from March 17, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), dpa-international.com, March 17, 2016, by Mirjam Schmitt.
  2. ↑ a b Kurds in Brussels - How dangerous is the PKK? - Attacks in Turkey - the Kurdish organization PKK quickly comes under suspicion. The conflict between the Turkish government and the Kurdish Workers' Party has stalled. But how dangerous is the PKK? ( Memento from March 27, 2016 on WebCite ) , tagesschau.de, March 22, 2016, by Oliver Mayer-Rüth ​​and Murat Yücalar.
  3. ↑ a b Government suspects the Kurds behind the attack in Ankara , in Die Zeit from March 13, 2016
  4. ^ Course of events on March 13, 2016, Merkur press report of March 14, 2016
  5. ↑ Turkey takes tough action against the PKK after the attack in Ankara. Süddeutsche Zeitung , March 14, 2016, accessed on August 26, 2020 .
  6. ↑ a b PKK perpetrated attack in Ankara - Turkish fighter jets bombed Kurdish positions in Iraq ( Memento of 24 March 2016 Webcite ) (English), focus.de, March 14, 2016th
  7. ↑ Blast Rocks Turkish Capital, Killing at Least 34 ( Memento from March 21, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), voanews.com, March 13, 2016 (VOA News).
  8. ↑ Ankara Kızılay'da Patlama ( Memento from March 22, 2016 on WebCite ) (Turkish), Americaninsesi.com (Voice Of America in Turkish language), March 13, 2016.
  9. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j Stories of Those Who Lost Their Lives in Explosion in Kızılay of Ankara - The ones who have lost their lives in the bomb attack yesterday in Kızılay downtown of Ankara ( Memento from March 23, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), bianet.org, March 14, 2016 (BIA News Desk). Turkish version: Kızılay'da Hayatını Kaybedenlerin Hikayeleri - Ankara Kızılay'daki saldırıda hayatını kaybedenler… ( Memento from March 23, 2016 on WebCite ) , bianet.org, March 14, 2016 (BİA Haber Merkezi).
  10. ↑ Ankara'daki saldırıda hayatını kaybedenlerin isimleri belli oldu ( Memento from March 24, 2016 on WebCite ) (Turkish), hurriyet.com.tr, March 14, 2016.
  11. ↑ a b Death toll rises to 36 in Ankara attack ( Memento from March 24, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), Hürriyet Daily News, March 21, 2016.
  12. ↑ Attack in Ankara: Father of Galatasaray professional among the victims ( memento from March 23, 2016 on WebCite ) (Turkish), spiegel.de, March 13, 2016 (wit / dpa / sid).
  13. ↑ a b Ankara massacre - Victim Families' Reactions Against Government in Funeral of Ankara Explosion Victims - The families of Destina Peri Parlak and Elvin Buğra Arslan among the 37 persons who have lost their lives in the Ankara explosion have reacted against the Government in their funerals crying; "Murderers", "your dirty politics have killed them", "you have made mothers cry" ( Memento of 23 March 2016 Webcite ) (English), bianet.org, March 15, 2016 (BIA News Desk).
  14. ↑ Arrests after the attack
  15. ↑ İçişleri Bakanlığı: Ankara saldırısının faili PKK'lı Seher Çağla Demir , message from www.t24.com of March 15, 2016 (Turkish)
  16. ↑ Ankara bomber 'linked to Syrian Kurdish rebels' ( Memento from March 21, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), france24.com, March 15, 2016 (AFP).
  17. ↑ a b Young student carried out attack in Ankara - After the attack in Turkey, the government released information about the suicide bomber. She is said to have been trained by the Syrian Kurdish militia ( memento from March 21, 2016 on WebCite ) , 20min.ch, March 15, 2016 (woz / AFP).
  18. ↑ Syria's Kurdish Army: An Interview With Redur Khalil ( Memento of 21 March 2016 Webcite ) (English), carnegieendowment.org, December 25, 2013, Aron Lund.
  19. ↑ Kızılay saldırısındaki araç ve diğer saldırganlara dair yeni bulgulara ulaşıldı , report from www.diken.com.tr of March 17, 2016 (Turkish)
  20. ↑ Üst düzey yetkili: İkinci saldırganın adı Özgür Ünsal, bir şüpheli daha var , message from www.diken.com.tr of March 17, 2016 (Turkish)
  21. ↑ a b c d e Five to eight / Cemil Bayık: Turkey is getting used to the terror - A column by Özlem Topçu - The PKK chief has announced that he wants to expand the war against the Turkish military. The people want revenge. A false claim: People want peace ( memento from March 27, 2016 on WebCite ) , zeit.de, March 18, 2016, by Özlem Topçu.
  22. ↑ http://www.n-tv.de/politik/Kurdenorganisation-bebekannt-sich-zu-Attentat-article17243426.html
  23. ↑ a b Kurdish splinter group in Turkey claims Ankara bombing as "revenge" ( Memento from February 21, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), dpa-international.com, February 20, 2016, by Shabtai Gold.
  24. ↑ Kurdish militants claim Ankara bombing, warn foreign tourists ( Memento from February 21, 2016 on WebCite ) (English), news.yahoo.com, February 19, 2016, by Stuart Williams (AFP).
  25. ↑ Revenge will be ours, pledges Turkey's most wanted man ( Memento of the original from March 30, 2016 in the Internet Archive ) Info: The @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.thetimes.co.uk archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. (English), thetimes.co.uk, March 15, 2016, by Anthony Loyd, accessed March 28, 2016.
  26. ↑ Cemil Bayık Times'a konuştu: Erdoğan'ı ve AKP'yi devirmek istiyoruz ( Memento from March 28, 2016 on WebCite ) (Turkish), bbc.com, March 15, 2016.
  27. ↑ PKK: “One wants to carry terror into the cities” - four attacks in less than three months - and: the terror is shifting more and more to the cities ( memento from March 27, 2016 on WebCite ) (video: 3:14 min .), srf.ch, March 24, 2016, by Luise Samman.

Coordinates: 39 ° 55 ′ 11.9 ″  N , 32 ° 51 ′ 13 ″  E