Turkey: 8 killed in blast at wedding in southeast

 

A wedding ceremony in Turkey was disrupted on Saturday, August 20, 2016 when a bomb went off killing eight people and injuring 60.

Eight people were killed and 60 were wounded on Saturday in an attack on a wedding party in southern Turkey.

Ambulances raced to the scene of the attack in the Sahinbey district of the city of Gaziantep and police sealed off the area.

A parliamentary deputy from the ruling AK Party said in a twitter message that Islamic State militants were believed to be behind the attack.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

NATO member Turkey has suffered a string of attacks this year by Islamic State fighters, who pass relatively easily across the border from neighbouring Syria, and by Kurdish militants seeking autonomy or independence.

Deputy Prime Minister Mehmet Simsek said Saturday's attack was probably carried out by a suicide bomber.

In July, the country was shaken by an attempted coup by rogue elements of the military.

Thousands have since been arrested or sacked in the military, police, civil service, judiciary and academia in a crackdown on what President Tayyip Erdogan calls a vast terrorist conspiracy.

Over 200 people were killed and the failed putsch that Erdogan says was engineered by a former ally, exiled Islamic cleric Fethullah Gulen.