Kurdish Wedding Suicide Bomber Was a Child, Says Recep Tayyip Erdogan

The suicide bombing which killed 51 people at a Kurdish wedding party in Gaziantep, Turkey, was carried out by a 12 to 14-year-old, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.

President Erdogan said ISIS was behind the attack. Gaziantep, near the Syrian border, is known to have several ISIS cells.

The bomb wounded 69 people, Recep Tayyip Erdogan added, 17 of them seriously.

The bomber targeted the wedding guests as they danced in the street.

A suicide bomber believed to have links to ISIS killed two policemen in Gaziantep in May.

In a written statement published by local media, President Erdogan argued there was “no difference” between ISIS, the Kurdish militants of the PKK, and followers of US-based cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom he blames for the coup attempt last month.

The bomb went off in a part of town popular with students and which has a large Kurdish community.

According to a report by Turkey’s Dogan news agency, the couple had moved to Gaziantep from the Kurdish town of Siirt further east to escape fighting between Kurdish rebels and security forces.

The United States condemned the attack, calling it “barbaric act”.