Turkish officials backtrack, say suicide bomber at wedding may not have been a child

Reporting from ISTANBUL, Turkey —  Turkish authorities have backed away from their assertion that the suicide bombing that killed at least 54 people at a Kurdish wedding Saturday was carried out by a child.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan had told reporters that the bomber was between 12 to 14 and that there were strong indications that Islamic State militants were behind the attack in the southern city of Gaziantep.

But Prime Minister Binali Yildirim backtracked on Monday. “There are rumors, but we have no clues on the Gaziantep bombing perpetrator or organization [right now] and cannot say if it was an adult or a child,” he said.

Confusion over the age of the attacker could have been caused by witnesses seeing children at the scene, officials said. Many were still out on the streets as the wedding party was winding down.

Of the 54 victims — up from 51 on Sunday — 29 were younger than 18, the prime minister said.

The Turkish newspaper Hurriyet reported that video from the scene showed two people fleeing just before the bombing and that investigators were looking into whether they played a role in the attack.

As for the group behind the bombing, a Turkish security official told Reuters that the device was the same type as those used in two attacks last year that were attributed to Islamic State militants.

In both of those cases — an attack in July that killed more than 30 people in the border town of Suruc and another three months later that claimed 103 lives in the capital, Ankara — Kurdish activists and their allies were the target.

That Islamic State never claimed responsibility was widely seen as part of its strategy of trying to foment the rift between the Turkish state and its Kurdish population. The government is battling an insurgency by militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK.

Kurds were also the target Saturday. Many guests at the wedding were from the pro-Kurdish People’s Democratic Party.

If it turns out that the bomber was a child, that would be not be unheard of for Islamic State.

Special correspondent Farooq reported from Istanbul and Times staff writer King from Washington.

laura.king@latimes.com

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UPDATES:

5:05 p.m.: This article was updated with staff reporting.

This article was originally published at 10:45 a.m.