Bomb used in Istanbul blast manufactured online: Soylu

ANTALYA

The bomb used in the attack that claimed the lives of six people and left 81 others injured on Nov. 13 in Istanbul was manufactured on social media accounts via an online meeting channel, the Turkish interior minister has informed.

“I may say that the bomb that exploded on the İstiklal Avenue was manufactured live on a social media channel,” Süleyman Soylu said, speaking at a workshop held by his ministry in the southern province of Antalya.

Turkish police arrested Ahlam Albashir, a Syrian woman linked to PKK, who had placed the bomb and left the scene. In days, many PKK members connected with Albashir were detained.

“The PKK/PYD member, code-named ‘Hacı,’ connects this channel via a U.S. mobile and tells everything one by one,” Soylu said. “We have all the information on how he depicted to produce the bomb, how he ordered where to put it, etc.”

He stressed that a state never tells tales but works with information, experience and seriousness.

Albashir said she did not know about the bomb and thought it was a bag of chocolates in her first testimony to the police.

“Her words, saying, ‘I did not know,’ does not reflect the truth,” the minister said. “The state’s prosecutors and police have recorded all the details of the incident spilling from her mouth.”

Following Albashir’s arrest, the Turkish army conducted a massive air campaign on PKK targets in northern Iraq and northern Syria. At the end of November, Ankara announced that a cross-border land operation will be conducted on the west of the Euphrates.