Ankara Blast Echoes Past Attacks in Türkiye

Members of Turkish Police Special Forces secure the area near the Interior Ministry following a bomb attack in Ankara, on October 1, 2023, leaving two police officers injured. (AFP)
Members of Turkish Police Special Forces secure the area near the Interior Ministry following a bomb attack in Ankara, on October 1, 2023, leaving two police officers injured. (AFP)
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Ankara Blast Echoes Past Attacks in Türkiye

Members of Turkish Police Special Forces secure the area near the Interior Ministry following a bomb attack in Ankara, on October 1, 2023, leaving two police officers injured. (AFP)
Members of Turkish Police Special Forces secure the area near the Interior Ministry following a bomb attack in Ankara, on October 1, 2023, leaving two police officers injured. (AFP)

Türkiye’s interior minister said on Sunday that two terrorists carried out a bomb attack in front of the ministry buildings in Ankara, adding one of them died in the explosion and the other was "neutralized" by authorities there.

The bombing, the first to hit Ankara in a number of years, comes almost a year after six people were killed and 81 wounded in an explosion in a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul on Nov 13, 2022.

Türkiye blamed Kurdish militants for the Istanbul blast, which reminded Turks of a wave of attacks carried out by various militant groups in Turkish cities between mid-2015 and early 2017.

Following are some of those deadly attacks:

Jan 5, 2017 - A Turkish police officer and a courthouse employee were killed by a car bomb in the Aegean coastal city of Izmir while at least 10 people were wounded. Authorities said Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants were behind the attack.

Dec 31, 2016 - ISIS claimed responsibility for a New Year's Day mass shooting in which 39 people were killed after a lone gunman opened fire in a packed Istanbul nightclub.

Dec 17, 2016 - A car bomb killed 13 soldiers and wounded 56 when it tore through a bus carrying off-duty military personnel in the central city of Kayseri. An offshoot of the PKK claimed responsibility for the attack.

Dec 10, 2016 - Twin bombings, one planted in a car and the other strapped to a suicide bomber, killed 44 people, most of them police officers, and wounded more than 150 outside an Istanbul soccer stadium. A PKK offshoot, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), claimed responsibility for the attack.

Aug 26, 2016 - A suicide truck bombing at a police headquarters in Türkiye’s largely Kurdish southeast killed at least 11 and wounded dozens. The PKK claimed responsibility for the attack.

Aug 20, 2016 - A suicide bomber carried out an attack on a wedding party in the southeastern Turkish city of Gaziantep that killed at least 51 people. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attacker had worked with the ISIS.

June 28, 2016 - A triple suicide bombing and a gun attack killed 45 people and wounded more than 160 people at Istanbul's main airport. Türkiye handed down life sentences to people linked to the perpetrators of the attack, believed to have been involved with ISIS.

May 12, 2016 - Explosives that detonated in a village in southeastern Türkiye killed 16 people, had been intended for use in a suicide bombing in the nearby province of Diyarbakir. Kurdish militants were believed to have been transporting the explosives, security sources have said.

March 19, 2016 - A suicide bomber killed four people in a busy shopping district of Istiklal Street in the heart of Istanbul. Authorities confirmed three Israelis, two of them holding dual US citizenship, and an Iranian citizen died as a result of the blast. Authorities said a Turkish member of the ISIS group was responsible for the bombing.

March 13, 2016 - Thirty-seven people were killed when a bomb-laden car exploded at a crowded transport hub in the heart of the Turkish capital Ankara.

Feb 17, 2016 - Twenty-eight people were killed and dozens wounded in Ankara when a car laden with explosives detonated next to military buses near the armed forces' headquarters, parliament and other government buildings.

Jan 12, 2016 - A suicide bomber killed at least 10 people, most of them German tourists, in Istanbul's historic heart in an attack then authorities blamed on ISIS.

Oct 10, 2015 - Twin bombings in Ankara killed more than 100 people outside the city's main train station. Turkish courts jailed perpetrators, who are believed to be linked to the ISIS, for life.

Sept 8, 2015 - Kurdish militants killed 15 police officers in two bombings in eastern Turkish provinces of Mardin and Igdir.

July 20, 2015 - An ISIS suicide bomber killed more than 30 people, mostly young students, in an attack on the mainly ethnic Kurdish town of Suruc near the Syrian border.



Iran Presidential Candidate Jalili Is Fiercely Loyal to Khamenei

Presidential candidate Saeed Jalili votes at a polling station in a snap presidential election to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raisi following his death in a helicopter crash, in Tehran, Iran June 28, 2024. Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
Presidential candidate Saeed Jalili votes at a polling station in a snap presidential election to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raisi following his death in a helicopter crash, in Tehran, Iran June 28, 2024. Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
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Iran Presidential Candidate Jalili Is Fiercely Loyal to Khamenei

Presidential candidate Saeed Jalili votes at a polling station in a snap presidential election to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raisi following his death in a helicopter crash, in Tehran, Iran June 28, 2024. Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters
Presidential candidate Saeed Jalili votes at a polling station in a snap presidential election to choose a successor to Ebrahim Raisi following his death in a helicopter crash, in Tehran, Iran June 28, 2024. Stringer/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via Reuters

Saeed Jalili, a zealous ideologue loyal to Iran's supreme leader, plans to resolve the country's social, political and economic ills by adhering rigidly to the hardline ideals of the 1979 revolution if he wins the country's presidential election.

Jalili was narrowly beaten in Friday's first round vote by moderate Massoud Pezeshkian but the two men will now face a run-off election on July 5, since Pezeshkian did not secure the majority of 50% plus one vote of ballots cast needed to win outright.

Jalili, a former diplomat, describes himself as a pious believer in "velayat-e faqih", or rule by supreme jurisprudence, the system of Islamic government that provides the basis for Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei's paramount position.

His staunch defense of the 45-year-old revolution appears designed to appeal to hardline, religiously-devout lower-income voters but offered little to young and urban Iranians frustrated by curbs on political and social freedoms.

Once Iran's top nuclear negotiator, Jalili, 58, was one of four candidates in the election for a successor to Ebrahim Raisi, who was killed in a helicopter crash in May.

He is currently a member of a body that mediates in disputes between parliament and the Guardian Council, a body that screens election candidates for their political and Islamic qualifications.

A staunch anti-Westerner, Jalili's advance to the second round signals the possibility of an even more antagonistic turn in the republic's foreign and domestic policy, analysts said.

Foreign and nuclear policy are the domain of Khamenei, who wields supreme command of the armed forces, has the power to declare war and appoints senior figures including armed forces commanders, judicial heads and the head of the state media.

However, the president can influence the tone of foreign and domestic policy.

Insiders and analysts say Khamenei, 85, seeks a strongly loyal president to run the government day-to-day and to be a trusted ally who can ensure stability, amid maneuvering over the eventual succession to his own position.

UNCOMPROMISING STANCE

Jalili is an opponent of Tehran's 2015 nuclear pact with major powers that was negotiated on the Iranian side by a group of pragmatic officials open to detente with the West.

Then-President Donald Trump reneged on the accord in 2018 and reimposed sanctions that have crippled Iran's economy. With the possible return of Trump to the White House after November's US presidential election and Jalili's possible election win, the deal's resurgence seems improbable.

Before the nuclear pact, Jalili served as Iran's top nuclear negotiator for five years from 2007, a period in which Tehran took a confrontational and uncompromising approach to discussions with global powers about its uranium enrichment program.

In those years, three UN Security Council resolutions were imposed on Iran, and several attempts to resolve the dispute failed.

During the current election campaign, Jalili was heavily criticized in debates on state TV by other candidates for his uncompromising nuclear stance and his opposition to Iran signing up to two conventions on financial crime recommended by the Financial Action Taskforce, an international crime watchdog.

Some hardliners, like Jalili, argue that the acceptance of the Convention on Combating the Financing of Terrorism and the Convention on Combating Transnational Organized Crime could hamper Iran's support for its paramilitary proxies across the region, including Lebanon's Hezbollah.

PRODUCT OF THE REVOLUTION

Jalili has been trying for the presidency for years. He finished third in the 2013 contest, and stood again in 2021 but eventually withdrew to support Raisi.

Born in the city of Mashhad in 1965, Jalili lost his right leg in the 1980s in fighting during the Iran-Iraq war and joined the Foreign Ministry in 1989. Despite his hardline views, he is outwardly soft-spoken.

He gained a doctorate in political science at Imam Sadiq University, a training ground for Iranian leaders.

For four years from 2001, he worked at Khamenei's office.

When hardliner Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was elected president in 2005, he chose Jalili to be his adviser, and within months made him deputy foreign minister.

Jalili was appointed in 2007 as the secretary of Iran's Supreme National Security Council, a post that automatically made him chief nuclear negotiator.