Turkmen Terzi
Turkish police have arrested a Syrian national, Ahlam Albashir, whom they claim is responsible for an explosion that killed six people and injured 81 in Istanbul’s busy Istiklal street on Sunday.
On Monday, Türkiye's Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its Syrian branch; the People's Defense Units (YPG) were responsible for the deadly attack. The PKK and the YPG have denied any involvement in the attack.
A senior Turkish official told Reuters that Turkish authorities were not ruling out that the attacker had ties to the Islamic State.
However, the deadly blast that targeted a civilian crowd is more likely to be Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s new global false-flag operation before the G-20 summit where he will probably use the attack as a motivation to convince world leaders in Indonesia to conduct Türkiye’s long-planned Syrian operation against Kurds.
The deadly attack has left many unanswered questions. The police raided 21 homes, arresting Albashir and 45 others who were in communication with Albashir, during the operation. It is unusual for the PKK to target civilians in the cities, furthermore, the armed organisation would usually quickly transfer their militants to the mountains after an attack.
Albashir is an Arab national or some even say she is an Ethiopian. The PKK is a Kurdish armed organisation that is not known to recruit ethnic Arabs. Another strange fact is that according to a Türkiye’s statement, Albashir and her partner entered Türkiye through Afrin in north-western Syria, Türkiye has been controlling Syria’s Afrin region since 2018 and it would be difficult for the Taksim perpetrator to enter using the route.
Sunday’s attack could also have been conducted by Turkish-backed Syrian armed groups. Türkiye supports the Free Syrian Army groups in Syria. The groups fight each other daily. Some Türkiye-backed groups accuse Ankara of siding with Russia and selling them out.
The attack in Taksim is more likely a false-flag operation by the Turkish intelligence to justify an operation in Syria. Türkiye targeted the YPG, the armed group that is the main fighting element of the Syrian Democratic Forces, in north-east Syria in October 2019, since then-US president Donald Trump’s decision to pull back troops from Syria’s border with Türkiye. Ankara views the YPG as an extension of the PKK and is trying to take control of Kurdish cities such as Ayn al-Arab (Kobani), Manbij and Tel Rifaat in northern Syria from YPG forces.
Turkey announced that Albashir was a Syrian terrorist trained by the PKK, but many social media users commented that she was not Syrian Kurd or Arab but from Ethiopia or Eritrea as she has a tattoo on her wrist, written in the Ethiopian Semitic language.
What is more interesting is that Turkish police have summoned Mehmet Emin Ilhan, from the far-right Nationalist Movement Party, an ally of Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, to testify regarding his connection to the suspected bomber of a recent attack in İstanbul.