World

Suruc massacre: 'Turkish student' was suicide bomber

July 22, 2015 6:17 pm

A 20-year-old Turkish student has been identified as the suicide bomber who killed 32 youth activists in the town of Suruc on Monday, officials say.

The attacker, named by local media as Seyh Abdurrahman Alagoz, was an ethnic Kurd from Turkey’s south-eastern province of Adiyaman and reportedly had links to Islamic State (IS) militants.

Meanwhile, Kurdish militants say they killed two Turkish police officers.

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The PKK said it was in revenge for the deaths in Suruc, a mainly Kurdish town.

Turkish officials have blamed the Suruc attack on IS. But many in Turkey feel the government has not done enough to support the Kurds in their fight to combat the threat of IS militants across the border in Syria – something denied by Ankara.

There have been rallies in cities across the country, with people condemning the attack and protesting at the government’s policies on Syria.

Access to Twitter was briefly blocked on Wednesday after a court banned the publication of images from the massacre in Suruc.

But some critics have accused the government of trying to stop Twitter users from continuing to organise further protests.