A bomb attack in Istanbul’s main shopping street on Sunday left at least six dead and 81 injured. The explosion happened while many tourists and day trippers were on their feet in Istiklal. “We consider this an act of terror perpetrated by a female perpetrator who detonated a bomb,” said Vice President Fuat Oktay.
The Turkish news channels HalkTV and OdaTV showed images of the alleged perpetrator: a woman with a headscarf and camouflage pants. She would have left a bag on a bench in the busy shopping street. Surveillance camera images, shared on social media, suggest the explosion was caused by a bomb in a bag. The justice minister said ten prosecutors have been assigned to the case.
Shortly after the attack, President Erdogan also pointed to the involvement of a woman. Just before his departure for Tuesday’s G20 summit in Indonesia, he spoke of a “treacherous attack”. “Those responsible will be punished,” Erdogan told reporters. “Attempts to take over Turkey and the Turkish nation through terrorism will not achieve their goal, as they have failed in the past.”
In response to the attack, the media watchdog RTÜK announced a temporary media ban. This means that no one is allowed to share images of the explosion, of the deaths and injuries, and of the work of the emergency services. It is also forbidden to speculate about the possible circumstances. The press is only allowed to copy official statements from the authorities. This also happened during previous attacks in Turkey.
In addition, the authorities limited the bandwidth for social media such as Twitter, Instagram, Facebook and YouTube. The official reason was to block content that “violates the ethics of the press” or that “promotes terrorism”. However, the result was that the internet was very slow in many places in Turkey, and the social media websites stopped functioning properly.
Turkey has reacted with astonishment to the act of terrorism. Because the country seemed to have left these kinds of deadly attacks behind. Turkey was hit by a series of bloody attacks claimed by Islamic State or Kurdish terror groups between 2015 and 2017. The last major attack in Istanbul was on New Year’s Eve in 2017, when an IS fighter shot 39 people in a nightclub.
Sunday’s bombing has not yet been claimed. In Turkish government circles, suspicion quickly went to the Kurdish terrorist group PKK, with which the female suspect is associated. But an attack by IS cannot be ruled out either. Two weeks ago, two IS members were arrested in Istanbul on alleged plans for an attack in the city. One of them, Zaher S., has been released on bail under the supervision of the Justice Department pending trial.
A version of this article also appeared in the newspaper of November 14, 2022