{"id":4561,"date":"2016-12-11T10:39:24","date_gmt":"2016-12-11T10:39:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/?p=4561"},"modified":"2016-12-11T10:39:24","modified_gmt":"2016-12-11T10:39:24","slug":"istanbul-stadium-attacks-turkey-points-finger-at-pkk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/2016\/12\/11\/istanbul-stadium-attacks-turkey-points-finger-at-pkk\/","title":{"rendered":"Istanbul stadium attacks: Turkey points finger at PKK"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The Turkish government says Kurdish militants appear to be responsible for twin bomb attacks on police outside a stadium in Istanbul on Saturday.<\/p>\n<p>Deputy PM Numan Kurtulmus said initial findings pointed towards the Kurdistan Workers&#8217; Party (PKK), which has targeted security forces in the past.<\/p>\n<p>At least 38 people died when a car bomb and a suicide bomber hit a police truck near Istanbul&#8217;s Vodafone Arena.<\/p>\n<p>The bombers struck two hours after a top-division football match there.<\/p>\n<p>Mr Numan told CNN Turk news channel that about 300-400kg (660-880lb) of explosives had been used in Saturday evening&#8217;s attack.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Arrows point&#8221; to the Kurdistan Worker&#8217;s Party (PKK), he added. No group has said it carried out the bombings.<\/p>\n<p>Who are Kurdistan Workers&#8217; Party (PKK) rebels?<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n<p>Media captionBesiktas TV presenter flees as blast hits stadium<\/p>\n<p>A wave of attacks in Turkey this year has been carried out both by the PKK and so-called Islamic State (IS), says the BBC&#8217;s Mark Lowen in Istanbul.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey is a member in the US-led coalition fighting the Islamic State, and its troops are active in both neighbouring Syria and Iraq.<\/p>\n<p>It is also facing a renewed conflict with the banned PKK in south-eastern Turkey.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey country profile<\/p>\n<p>Image copyrightAFP<\/p>\n<p>Image copyrightREUTERS<\/p>\n<p>Image caption<\/p>\n<p>Photographs emerged of police helping their injured colleagues<\/p>\n<p>Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said 13 people had been arrested after the latest blasts, but gave no details.<\/p>\n<p>Thirty of those killed were police officers. Dozens of people remain in hospital, some in intensive care.<\/p>\n<p>Turkey has declared a day of national mourning. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the explosions had &#8220;aimed to maximise casualties&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p>But they came two hours after the end of the match between top teams Bursaspor at Besiktas at the Vodafone Arena, is located in central Istanbul.<\/p>\n<p>Local media reported that fans had already dispersed. Bursaspor posted on Twitter that it knew of no injuries to its supporters.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Turkish government says Kurdish militants appear to be responsible for twin bomb attacks on police outside a stadium in Istanbul on Saturday. Deputy PM Numan Kurtulmus said initial findings pointed towards the Kurdistan Workers&rsquo; Party (PKK), which has targeted security forces in the past. At least 38 people died when a car bomb and a suicide bomber hit a police truck near Istanbul&rsquo;s Vodafone Arena. The bombers struck two hours after a top-division football match there. Mr Numan told CNN Turk news channel that about 300-400kg (660-880lb) of explosives<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":4562,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[4],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4561"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4563,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4561\/revisions\/4563"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.banglanewsus.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}