Syrian Kurds Deny Blame for Ankara Bombing

Turkey Launches Yet More Attacks on Syrian Kurdish Targets

The Syrian Kurdish PYD, the political wing of the YPG militia, has publicly denied Turkish government allegations that his faction was behind yesterday’s bombing attack in the capital city of Ankara, which killed 28 people, mostly soldiers.

There was no claim of responsibility after the bombing, and at the time Turkish officials conceded they had no leads on a culprit. Today, however, they blamed the Kurds and announced several arrests.

Turkey has been attacking the YPG’s targets in Syria since the weekend, and appears to believe Ankara was retaliation for those attacks. Their answer, of course, is yet more retaliation, and the military continued to bomb sites across northern Syria today.

While the YPG doubtless has motive to retaliate against the Turkish military, blaming them also seems extremely politically convenient for the Erdogan government, which has been trying to sell the narrative of the YPG as terrorists to both the US and Russia, and suddenly has an incident tailor-made for that claim.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.