Turkey's prime minister says authorities have identified a suspect in an apparent suicide bombing that killed 32 people and wounded nearly 100 in southeastern Turkey on Monday.
Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu says that authorities are probing the international and domestic connections of a specific person they believe was a suicide bomber tied to the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL). He did not elaborate on the identity of the suspect.
Neither ISIL nor any other group has claimed responsibility for the attack in Suruc. Turkish officials have said that they believe the attack was retaliation for Turkey's recent steps against ISIL fighters.
Suruc is across the border from the Syrian city of Kobane, the scene of fierce battles between Kurdish groups and ISIL. Kobane's recapture was ISIL’s biggest defeat last year, after it established control over swaths of Iraq and Syria, and the city has become a symbol of Kurdish resistance against the group.
The explosion in Suruc came just weeks after Turkey deployed additional troops and equipment along parts of its border with Syria, concerned about the risk of spillover as fighting intensifies between Kurdish forces, rebel groups, Syrian government troops and ISIL members.
Turkey's leaders have said that they do not plan any unilateral military incursion into Syria but that they will do whatever necessary to defend the country's borders.
Ankara fears any disorder in the border area could reignite an armed Kurdish rebellion that has killed some 40,000 since 1984. It would also concern Western allies, which seek greater controls on a porous frontier that serves as a front line in the battle against ISIL.
Monday's blast occurred at a cultural center while the Federation of Socialist Youth Associations was giving a statement to the press on Kobane's reconstruction.
Al Jazeera and wire services
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