ANKARA // Tensions were high in Turkey on Thursday as the government blamed Kurdish militant groups at home and in neighbouring Syria for a deadly suicide bombing in Ankara, vowing strong retaliation.
The rush hour car-bomb attack on Wednesday evening targeted buses carrying military personnel, killing 28 people and injuring dozens.
At least 14 people have been arrested in connection with the Ankara bombing, president Recep Tayyip Erdogan said on Thursday, adding that the number of detained suspects is likely to increase.
The bombing came as the Turkish government had been pressing the United States to cut off its support to Kurdish Syrian militias. Ankara regards these militias as terrorists because of their affiliation with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Turkey.
The US already lists the PKK as a terror group. But Washington relies heavily on the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its military wing, the People's Protection Units (YPG), in the battle against ISIL and has rejected Turkish pressure.
Prime minister Ahmet Davutoglu said on Thursday that a Syrian national with links to the YPG had carried out the attack in Ankara in collaboration with the PKK. Mr Davutoglu also blamed Syria's government for allegedly backing the Syrian Kurdish militias.
"It has been determined with certainty that this attack was carried out by members of the separatist terror organisation together with a member of the YPG who infiltrated from Syria," Mr Davutoglu said, identifying the bomber as a Syrian man named Salih Neccar who was born in 1992.
Neccar was born in the mostly Kurdish Syrian town of Amouda, near the Turkish border, according to Mr Davutoglu.
But the leader of the PYD, Salih Muslim, denied that his group was behind the Ankara attack and warned Turkey against taking ground action in Syria.
Turkish artillery has been shelling PYD and YPG positions along its border in Syria in recent days, apparently concerned by Kurdish advances in the area.
In the past week, the US-backed Syria Democratic Forces, an Arab-Kurdish alliance dominated by the YPG, has made significant advances against ISIL near the Turkish border. On Wednesday, the alliance launched an offensive to try to reach Shaddadeh, a major ISIL stronghold in Syria's northeastern Hassakeh province.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Turkey in renewed fighting following the collapse of the peace process between the government and the PKK in July.
On Thursday, six soldiers were killed in southeastern Turkey after PKK rebels detonated a bomb on a road linking the cities of Diyarbakir and Bingol, the state-run Anadolu Agency reported.
Turkey has also been helping efforts led by the US to combat ISIL in neighbouring Syria, and has faced several deadly bombings in the last year that were blamed on the extremist group.
* Associated Press
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