No one claimed responsibility for the blast. Kurdistan National Congress spokesman Selahattin Soro stated that the PKK (Kurdistan Workers' Party) was not complicit in the attack, pointing out that PKK does not target civilians - they target those who oppress the ordinary people - and adding that the Turkish government would use this attack as a pretext to interfere in the affairs of neighboring states (i.e. Syria and Iraq). He was right.
Seemingly borrowing from the Israeli playbook by rote, in less than 24 hours the Turkish Interior Ministry announced that they would name the "terrorist organization" responsible the next day (today). Predictably, they named the PKK, and Turkish jets proceeded to bomb PKK positions in northern Iraq (where up to 2,000 Turkish troops illegally remain deployed), with Erdogan vowing to bring terrorism "to its knees" and saying Turkey would "never give up using its right of self-defense."
An anonymous Turkish security official told Reuters that the car used in the attack had come from Viransehir in the largely Kurdish southeast. Either the same or a different source suggested that the explosives used were similar to those used in the previous attack of February 17. Recall that responsibility for that one was claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), a shadowy group with no proven ties to the PKK, and whom the PKK has publicly denounced.
One of the alleged 'bombers' has been identified as Seher Cagla Demir, a female PKK member who had been on trial for her PKK membership and "spreading terrorist propaganda" (in other words, telling people about the genocidal actions of Turkish military in Kurdish cities, perhaps?). She was allegedly identified from scrap body parts and fingerprints. Opposition newspaper Cumhuriyet denied rumors that Demir had worked for them as a freelance journalist. They don't even work with freelancers. The head of the paper, Ayse Sayin, threatened to sue those making the allegations, saying, "This is a black propaganda campaign against our newspaper." Who wants to see Cumhuriyet's reputation blackened? There's a simple answer: who felt so threatened by their coverage of Turkish support for ISIS and the realities of the military campaign against the Kurds that they arrested two of their journalists on charges of treason? The Turkish government.
In his statement on the arrests and the status of the deceased bodies, Turkish PM Davotoglu said this: "The DNA-study of the two remaining bodies is ongoing. But there is complete certainty that one of them belongs to the suicide bomber, and the second, perhaps, to his accomplice." According to the Daily Sabah, the second suspect is a "male Turkish citizen with links to Kurdish militants". However, Turkey's Deputy PM Numan Kurtulmus says: "The man who could have been her accomplice...has not yet been identified. I urge journalists to be patient and wait for the outcome of forensic medical examination."
Now let's think about this. The Erdogan government has made no secret of its hatred for the Kurds in both Turkey and Syria/Iraq and their demands for an independent Kurdistan, and desperately needs some semblance of a 'moral' justification for continuing its brutal attacks on them. Then, as if by magic, a series of bombs explode in Turkish cities, killing many innocent Turks, and the Erdogan government immediately, and without any real evidence, blames the Kurdish Workers' Party and the Syrian Kurdish militia. If you're not very suspicious, you may be braindead.
Of course, this is all patent nonsense, an entirely fabricated storyline designed to serve the pernicious intentions of the Erdogan government against the Kurds. Consider that, in this narrative, we are asked to believe that alongside a busy public road in Ankara, with ample parking space, it was not possible for the alleged car bombers to simply park the car and detonate it while they were at a safe distance. No indeed, the old Israeli 'suicide bomber' canard simply must be used to demonize the chosen enemy as 'crazed extremists who don't even care about their own lives'. As has been the case with just about every alleged 'Palestinian suicide bomber', the appropriate response to this farcical claim by the Turkish government - which is being ignorantly disseminated by the Western media - is 'suicide bomber my ass!'
But of course, the Erdogan government fully intends to carry on with the farce. "Anti-terror" raids in response to the bombing have led to the opportunistic arrests of 79 people (including 9 minors), only 11 of whom were arrested in connection with the attack.
Capitalizing on the fear and BS factor, Turkish police are on the look-out for 20 cars they 'fear' may be used in new PKK attacks planned for March 20th:
"PKK and the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party want to turn Turkey into a sea of blood on March 20," allegedly by staging a series of mass terrorist attacks, the statement said, as quoted by the newspaper [Cumhuriyet].Hmm, we wonder how they know that! Obviously, Erdogan and his handlers in Turkish intelligence (a largely NATO-controlled outfit) want to turn Turkey into a fascist, totalitarian state where any public dissent against the desired invasion of Syria (and possibly Iraq) will be quashed in advance.
Thankfully, the first deputy chair of Russia's upper-house Committee on Security and Defense, Franz Klintsevich, gave a much more reasonable explanation of what the purpose of the bombing was: Turkey is being 'provoked' to pursue a military invasion of Syria:
"The rationale of the organizers is quite evident. They apparently count on the attack in the center of the capital, not the first one, to explode the situation in the region; Turkey is literally being pushed to intervene militarily in Syria," RIA Novosti quotes him as telling journalists.So as is usual with such terror attacks, the question 'who benefits from this bombing?' has a ridiculously obvious answer. The Kurds will be nervously awaiting another round of slaughter at the hands of Turkish forces, Erdogan and Co. will be watching that slaughter with glee on their big screen TVs, and the U.S.A. will be raising a glass to Turkey, the best disposable chaos-creator-by-proxy in the region they could have hoped for.
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