Two weeks after more than a hundred people were killed in an Ankara bomb attack, opposition figures are angry over an apparently enormous security lapse by the government.
IS was immediately considered “suspect number one” after twin suicide bombings on October 10 in front of the city’s train station killed 102 people, due to similarities with an earlier bombing blamed on the extremist organization, AFP reports.
Media reports this week said the national police headquarters had warned in September that IS militants were preparing a large attack in Turkey, such as hijacking a plane or detonating suicide bombs in a crowded location.
Critics have accused the state of encouraging violence against the HDP–which presents the biggest challenge to the government at the elections–and going soft on IS, enemy of Turkey’s enemies, the Syrians and the Kurds.
Kemal Kilicdaroglu, head of the social-democratic Republican People’s Party (CHP), insisted recently that the state’s failure to dismantle extremist networks could mean just one thing: “I will say it clearly: it is about protecting IS.”
While Turkish Premier Ahmet Davutoglu has brushed off the allegations, prosecutors have nonetheless opened a preliminary investigation into the country’s interior minister, Selami Altinok, on the grounds of negligence, the Hurriyet newspaper reported on Friday.
