No one has claimed responsibility. Suspicion has fallen upon both the Islamic State and Kurdish separatists. In either case, the use of suicide bombers shows up the jihadist aspect of the attack, as the attackers were claiming Allah’s promise of Paradise to those who “kill and are killed” (Qur’an 9:111) in his cause.
“Thousands gather in Ankara in aftermath of deadly blasts that killed scores,” by Jethro Mullen and Arwa Damon, CNN, October 11, 2015:
Ankara, Turkey (CNN)Thousands of people gathered in the streets of Ankara on Sunday near the site of two deadly bomb blasts that tore through crowds taking part in a peace rally in the capital a day earlier.
The attack, for which no group has so far claimed responsibility, killed at least 95 people, wounded nearly 250 others and threatened to deepen divisions and distrust in Turkey’s polarized society.
“This was supposed to be a peace rally. This was supposed to be about bringing Turkey together to show unity amongst the Turks and the Kurds and the other ethnic groups. This attack very much has now ripped that apart,” said Sajjan Gohel, the international security director at the Asia-Pacific Foundation in London.
Two suicide bombers are believed to have caused the blasts near the city’s main train station, Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said in a televised address to the nation.
The atrocity is the deadliest single terrorist attack on Turkish soil and has happened at a politically sensitive time, just three weeks before national elections.
The huge blasts shook high-rise office buildings and left bodies protest banners and flags scattered across the ground….
Most of the victims were attending a lunchtime demonstration calling for an end to the renewed conflict between the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and the Turkish government. Those taking part included the pro-Kurdish HDP, or People’s Democratic Party, which said on Twitter two of its parliamentary candidates were killed in the blasts.
Rallies involving Kurdish groups in Turkey have been hit by bombings three times this year. A suicide attack in the town of Suruc, near the Syrian border, in July killed 34 people. A supporter of the Islamic extremist group ISIS was blamed for carrying out that attack, but the group never claimed responsibility….
The Turkish government recently changed its stance in the fight against ISIS and allowed the U.S. to launch strikes on the militant group’s positions from Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey.
President Barack Obama spoke with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Saturday and “conveyed his deepest personal sympathies for those killed and injured in these heinous attacks, and affirmed that the American people stand in solidarity with the people of Turkey in the fight against terrorism and shared security challenges in the region,” according to a White House statement….
“Shared security challenges” whose ideology we cannot name or examine.