Terror attack in Turkey kills 6, wounds 81.

 

Survivors hug at the site of the attack. BBC/Getty.

A terror attack in Turkey has killed six people and left 81 wounded. BBC. The attack took place in a crowded market street in Istanbul's Taksim Square area. The terror attack was carried out by a woman. The woman sat at a bench for 40 minutes and then left right before the blast. It is unclear what the motive for the attack was and no terror group has taken credit for the attack as of this writing. Turkey has had problems with terror attacks before and the same area was hit by a suicide bombing in 2016. 

CNN reports that the suspect is in custody. 

⚠️‼️🇹🇷💥Explosion occurred in the center of Istanbul, there are wounded, Turkish TV reports

The explosion occurred on the pedestrian tourist street Istiklal in Istanbul pic.twitter.com/7tlBdBdQTU

— AZ 🛰🌏🌍🌎 (@AZgeopolitics) November 13, 2022

My Comment:

Sorry to use CNN as a secondary source, but they were the only ones to report that the suspect was in custody. I think that was important to add to the story so I decided to cite them, even though I have very little respect for them as a news source. 

As for this terror attack, it appears to be a fairly bad one. The video I posted showed how crowded the market was and it's a miracle that more people weren't killed, though, of course, the death toll could rise considerably over time. The location was a fairly good one for a terror attack with everyone bunched up together.

It's very unclear at this writing who was responsible for this attack. There is no shortage of suspects in Turkey as they have had a very long history of terror attacks committed by multiple different and competing terror groups. 

ISIS is the obvious suspect. The problem is that ISIS no longer has a base of operations to launch attacks from near Turkey. They don't really have much of a presence in Syria and Iraq anymore so it would be difficult to launch attacks in Turkey. Plus this was a fairly complicated attack that would require a bombmaker to be involved, and I don't see that happening here anymore. It also seems to rule out the possibility of this being a "lone wolf" attack.  The fact that the attacker was a woman seems to rule ISIS out, though ISIS has used women in terror attacks before.  

The Kurds are another prime suspect to the point where I would be surprised if it wasn't them. They have been at war with the Turks for a long time now. The PKK, the Kurdistan Worker's Party, has committed several similar bombings in the past. As a far left organization that has used women in combat, so it wouldn't be surprising if they had a female bomber. They also have a major infrastructure for terrorism and access to explosives. 

It's possible that some other terror group could be responsible for this attack, or even that the attack was really a lone wolf attacker with some mysterious motive. But my guess is that it would either be ISIS or the PKK. I'd put money on those two options if it were possible to bet on something so ghoulish. 

It is somewhat striking that this attack was carried out by a woman. Women are certainly capable of violence and they have been involved in several major terror attacks. Even in the Muslim world, where women are generally treated less well as men, sometimes they carry out attacks like this.