Ankara Bomber 'Was Female PKK Militant'

A 22-year-old woman was one of two suicide attackers who killed at least 37 people in Turkey's capital on Sunday, officials say.

The 22-year-old attacker is from the eastern city of Kars and joined the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) in 2013.

The blast ripped through Kizilay, a major shopping and transport hub, in the centre of the Turkish capital on Sunday night, also injuring around 125 people.

It was the third terror attack in Ankara in just six months.

Sky's Jonathan Samuels, in Ankara, said: "We've heard that two suicide bombers were involved. They turned up in a BMW which was packed with ... nails and pellets, to cause maximum carnage.

"That BMW was traced, using the chassis number, back to a town in eastern Turkey and as a result ... they have been able to identify one of the two."

Fighter jets struck arms depots and shelters of the PKK in the Iraqi mountainous areas of Qandil and Gara on Monday, according to Turkey's army.

Nine F-16s and two F-4s carried out the strikes on eighteen recently identified targets, the military added in a statement.

Earlier, Turkey's president pledged that "terrorism will be brought to its knees" in the aftermath of a car bomb attack in the Turkish capital which killed at least 37 people.

Recep Tayyip Erdogan said: "Our people should not worry, the struggle against terrorism will for certain end in success."

Kurdish militants are known to use bases in northern Iraq in their ongoing conflict with Turkey for an independent homeland and greater rights for Kurds.

Police detained 36 suspected Kurdish militants in the southern Turkish city of Adana and 15 in Istanbul on Monday.

Meanwhile, the authorities declared a nighttime curfew in the mainly Kurdish southeastern Turkish town of Sirnak and prepared army operations in the towns of Nusaybin and Yuksekova.

No group has claimed responsibility for the latest attack in Ankara but other bombings elsewhere in the country have been blamed on Islamic State, which is also active in Turkey.

A car bombing near a military headquarters in Ankara in February that left 28 dead and 61 injured was later claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK).

The TAK has said it split from the PKK, although experts who study Kurdish militants say the two groups are affiliated.

Labour's shadow foreign secretary Hilary Benn called the latest bombing a "shocking and cowardly terrorist attack".

http://news.sky.com/ By: News Sky Photo: News Sky