Not many details are available on the bombing yet, and no group has rushed forward to take "credit" for it, but once again, the Turks are twanging hamstrings to blame it on their clandestine ISIS allies:
A Syrian-born suicide bomber triggered a blast Tuesday in the heart of one of Istanbul’s main tourist districts, a senior official said, killing at least ten people in a further sign of the country’s deepening instability in a region wracked by war.
The attack struck directly at a hub of Istanbul’s important tourism trade, reflecting similar tactics used by militants against popular sites in countries including Tunisia and Egypt.
Turkey’s deputy prime minister, Numan Kurtulmuş, told reporters that the attacker was identified as a Syrian, but gave no other details following an emergency meeting of security officials.
There was no immediate claim of responsibly, but Turkish officials have blamed the Islamic State for recent bombings elsewhere in Turkey. In addition, Kurdish separatists and domestic left-wing groups have carried out attacks in Turkey.
It's difficult to see how a staged suicide bomb attack in western Turkey - the opposite end of the country from Turkish Kurdistan - helps the self-proclaimed Islamist regime of Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. It also doesn't seem to do much for ISIS's cause, since they presumably do not need another full-fledged enemy with both means and motivation to wipe them out. And the PKK doesn't have anything to gain from it for the same reason that the Turks don't, since the attack hit an area far from Kurdish territory and would just bring the Turks down on them all the harder. That would leave domestic leftwing groups, in whose interest it would be to strike a blow against the Turkish tourism industry, and who would make a great deal of sense to use a Syrian to carry out such a false-flag attack to throw investigators off their scent.
Am I being way to Vulcanesque in my analysis? Time will tell, but I'm sticking to my theory until there's any compelling reason to do otherwise.
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