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