On 1 May 2016, a
car bomb
A car bomb, bus bomb, lorry bomb, or truck bomb, also known as a vehicle-borne improvised explosive device (VBIED), is an improvised explosive device designed to be detonated in an automobile or other vehicles.
Car bombs can be roughly divided ...
ing took place in the Turkish city of
Gaziantep
Gaziantep (), previously and still informally called Aintab or Antep (), is a major city and capital of the Gaziantep Province, in the westernmost part of Turkey's Southeastern Anatolia Region and partially in the Mediterranean Region, approximat ...
. The bombing took place at 09:17 (
UTC+3
UTC+03:00 is an identifier for a time offset from UTC of +03:00. In areas using this time offset, the time is three hours later than the Coordinated Universal Time (UTC).
Following the ISO 8601 standard, a time with this offset would be wri ...
)
in front of the police headquarters
along the thoroughfare Prof. Dr. Muammer Aksoy Boulevard.
[ 2 police personnel were killed and 22 people, consisting of 18 police personnel and 4 civilians, were injured.] The perpetrator was also killed.
Background
The bombing occurred at a time when Turkey was targeted by successive bombings from Kurdish and Islamist organisations alike. The most recent bombing had occurred on 27 April in Bursa
( grc-gre, Προῦσα, Proûsa, Latin: Prusa, ota, بورسه, Arabic:بورصة) is a city in northwestern Turkey and the administrative center of Bursa Province. The fourth-most populous city in Turkey and second-most populous in the ...
. Gaziantep Police had recently conducted a number of operations against active Kurdistan Workers' Party
The Kurdistan Workers' Party or PKK is a Kurdish militant political organization and armed guerrilla movement, which historically operated throughout Kurdistan, but is now primarily based in the mountainous Kurdish-majority regions of south ...
(PKK) and Islamic State
An Islamic state is a State (polity), state that has a form of government based on sharia, Islamic law (sharia). As a term, it has been used to describe various historical Polity, polities and theories of governance in the Islamic world. As a t ...
(IS) cells in the city. According to reports in the Turkish media, Gaziantep Police had intelligence about such an attack that could be made to coincide with May 1st
Events Pre-1600
* 305 – Diocletian and Maximian retire from the office of Roman emperor.
* 880 – The Nea Ekklesia is inaugurated in Constantinople, setting the model for all later cross-in-square Orthodox churches.
*1169 – ...
.
Bombing
The bombing took place around 10 metres away from the police headquarters, near Demokrasi Square where the governor's office, town hall, Kamil Ocak Stadium
Kamil Ocak Stadium ( tr, Kamil Ocak Stadyumu) was a multi-purpose stadium in Gaziantep, Turkey. It was used mostly for football matches and was the home ground of Gaziantepspor
Gaziantepspor was a Turkish football club located in the city of Ga ...
and a number of businesses are located. The area had been closed due to May Day and two vehicles reportedly entered the area by crossing through the barriers. The assailants opened fire on the security forces in the area with machine guns, and as the police responded and the car fled, a second car that followed was detonated. According to Arif Ekici, a member of parliament of the Republican People's Party
The Republican People's Party ( tr, Cumhuriyet Halk Partisi, , acronymized as CHP ) is a Kemalist and social-democratic political party in Turkey which currently stands as the main opposition party. It is also the oldest political party ...
representing Gaziantep, the death toll would have been much higher if not for a policeman who saw the incoming vehicle that carried the bomb and opened fire, alerting his colleagues in time. The policeman himself was killed in the attack.
The glasses of the businesses and public buildings in the area were broken in the blast.[
No groups claimed responsibility for the bombing.][ According to '' Habertürk'', the suspected perpetrator of the attack was the IS, with the possible assailant being İsmail Güneş, whose father was arrested. Güneş was reportedly known to be an ISIL member and his psychological situation had reportedly deteriorated after the recent death of his mother.
]
Aftermath
The area of the bombing was completely cleared of pedestrians and traffic.[ Following the attack, May Day celebrations that were scheduled in the city were cancelled,] as well as a basketball match scheduled between Royal Halı Gaziantep
Gaziantep Basketbol is a professional basketball team based in the city of Gaziantep in Turkey that plays in the Turkish Basketball Super League. Their home arena is the Karataş Şahinbey Sport Hall with a capacity of 6,400 seats.
History
The ...
and Fenerbahçe in the city. A ban on broadcasting about the attack was put in place by Turkish authorities.
Following the attack, police in the city called for vigilance about a possibility that an attack could be carried out using a fake ambulance.
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gaziantep bombing, 2016 05
2016 murders in Turkey
21st century in Gaziantep
Attacks on police stations in the 2010s
Car and truck bombings in Turkey
ISIL terrorist incidents in Turkey
Islamic terrorist incidents in 2016
May 2016 crimes in Asia
May 2016 events in Turkey
Suicide bombings in Turkey
Terrorist incidents in Turkey in 2016
Terrorist incidents in Gaziantep
Building bombings in Turkey
Attacks in Turkey in 2016