ISTANBUL // A remote-control bomb killed five people in an attack on a convoy carrying military personnel and their relatives near the international airport of Turkey's metropolis Istanbul yesterday.
Turkish politicians and generals are coming under growing pressure to find ways to avert a further escalation of the Kurdish conflict, which has plagued the country for almost 30 years.
The Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, or TAK, claimed responsibility for the attack and warned civilians to stay away from army targets, according to a statement carried by pro-Kurdish Firat News Agency. The TAK is a suspected sub-group of the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a rebel organisation that has been fighting the Turkish state since 1984.
Four soldiers and the 17-year-old daughter of a serviceman died in the blast, which ripped open the last of three white buses carrying members of the Jandarma, a paramilitary force belonging to the armed forces and charged with police duties outside Turkey's metropolitan areas. The blast, which also injured 10 soldiers, was triggered by a mobile phone, police said. After the explosion, police sealed off the area and searched for a possible second bomb.
"The terror has reached the cities," the NTV news channel said. Yesterday's attack took place near the site of another attack on June 8, when a bomb blew up a police bus, injuring 15 officers. The TAK claimed responsibility for that attack and said it was "just the beginning" of a new bombing campaign.
Turkish experts say the PKK, created the TAK in order to have an instrument to attack civilian targets without being blamed for the violence. The PKK has denied this, but the TAK regards Abdullah Ocalan, the jailed PKK leader, as its leader and steps up its attacks whenever the PKK does so.
In a meeting with his lawyer on the prison island of Imrali near Istanbul, where he is serving a life sentence, Mr Ocalan said last month he was withdrawing from what he called his efforts to bring a peaceful solution to the Kurdish question because the Turkish state would not negotiate with him. At the same time, the PKK said it was planning new attacks.
Since then the rebels have killed dozens of soldiers in several attacks in eastern and south-eastern Anatolia, 13 since last weekend, while the military said it killed 21 PKK fighters since June 14.
By escalating its attacks, the PKK wants to force Ankara to accept Mr Ocalan as an interlocutor. The Turkish government has consistently rejected that demand. In an emergency meeting on Monday, the political and military leadership said it would step up its fight against the PKK.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the prime minister, has come under fire from Turkish and Kurdish nationalists alike for trying to solve the Kurdish conflict by a programme of reforms called "Democratic Opening". The plan, which includes an extension of language rights for Turkey's estimated 12 million Kurds, has been criticised as a sell-out to Kurdish separatism by Turkish nationalists, while Kurdish politicians say it does not go far enough.
In a speech yesterday Mr Erdogan said he would not abandon the "Opening" and called on the opposition parties to co-operate with the government. At the same time, he again rejected talks with Mr Ocalan or the PKK. "The terrorist organisation is not the representative and spokesman of my Kurdish brothers," he said. "It never was and never will be." But Devlet Bahceli, the leader of the right wing Nationalist Movement Party yesterday said the "Opening" was a "project of treason".
But the pressure on the politicians to do something is mounting. Comparing the years since 1984, when the PKK took up arms, to a "horror movie", Umit Boyner, the president of the Turkish Industrialists' and Businessmen's Association, or Tusiad, a politically powerful business organisation, called on all political parties to come together. "Terror has once again become the most important item on Turkey's agenda," she said earlier this week.
Common OCD symptoms and how they manifest
Checking: the obsession or thoughts focus on some harm coming from things not being as they should, which usually centre around the theme of safety. For example, the obsession is “the building will burn down”, therefore the compulsion is checking that the oven is switched off.
Contamination: the obsession is focused on the presence of germs, dirt or harmful bacteria and how this will impact the person and/or their loved ones. For example, the obsession is “the floor is dirty; me and my family will get sick and die”, the compulsion is repetitive cleaning.
Orderliness: the obsession is a fear of sitting with uncomfortable feelings, or to prevent harm coming to oneself or others. Objectively there appears to be no logical link between the obsession and compulsion. For example,” I won’t feel right if the jars aren’t lined up” or “harm will come to my family if I don’t line up all the jars”, so the compulsion is therefore lining up the jars.
Intrusive thoughts: the intrusive thought is usually highly distressing and repetitive. Common examples may include thoughts of perpetrating violence towards others, harming others, or questions over one’s character or deeds, usually in conflict with the person’s true values. An example would be: “I think I might hurt my family”, which in turn leads to the compulsion of avoiding social gatherings.
Hoarding: the intrusive thought is the overvaluing of objects or possessions, while the compulsion is stashing or hoarding these items and refusing to let them go. For example, “this newspaper may come in useful one day”, therefore, the compulsion is hoarding newspapers instead of discarding them the next day.
Source: Dr Robert Chandler, clinical psychologist at Lighthouse Arabia
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- Olympic-size swimming pool with a split bulkhead for multi-use configurations, including water polo and 50m/25m training lanes
- Premier League-standard football pitch
- 400m Olympic running track
- NBA-spec basketball court with auditorium
- 600-seat auditorium
- Spaces for historical and cultural exploration
- An elevated football field that doubles as a helipad
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The smuggler
Eldarir had arrived at JFK in January 2020 with three suitcases, containing goods he valued at $300, when he was directed to a search area.
Officers found 41 gold artefacts among the bags, including amulets from a funerary set which prepared the deceased for the afterlife.
Also found was a cartouche of a Ptolemaic king on a relief that was originally part of a royal building or temple.
The largest single group of items found in Eldarir’s cases were 400 shabtis, or figurines.
Khouli conviction
Khouli smuggled items into the US by making false declarations to customs about the country of origin and value of the items.
According to Immigration and Customs Enforcement, he provided “false provenances which stated that [two] Egyptian antiquities were part of a collection assembled by Khouli's father in Israel in the 1960s” when in fact “Khouli acquired the Egyptian antiquities from other dealers”.
He was sentenced to one year of probation, six months of home confinement and 200 hours of community service in 2012 after admitting buying and smuggling Egyptian antiquities, including coffins, funerary boats and limestone figures.
For sale
A number of other items said to come from the collection of Ezeldeen Taha Eldarir are currently or recently for sale.
Their provenance is described in near identical terms as the British Museum shabti: bought from Salahaddin Sirmali, "authenticated and appraised" by Hossen Rashed, then imported to the US in 1948.
- An Egyptian Mummy mask dating from 700BC-30BC, is on offer for £11,807 ($15,275) online by a seller in Mexico
- A coffin lid dating back to 664BC-332BC was offered for sale by a Colorado-based art dealer, with a starting price of $65,000
- A shabti that was on sale through a Chicago-based coin dealer, dating from 1567BC-1085BC, is up for $1,950
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KILLING OF QASSEM SULEIMANI
History's medical milestones
1799 - First small pox vaccine administered
1846 - First public demonstration of anaesthesia in surgery
1861 - Louis Pasteur published his germ theory which proved that bacteria caused diseases
1895 - Discovery of x-rays
1923 - Heart valve surgery performed successfully for first time
1928 - Alexander Fleming discovers penicillin
1953 - Structure of DNA discovered
1952 - First organ transplant - a kidney - takes place
1954 - Clinical trials of birth control pill
1979 - MRI, or magnetic resonance imaging, scanned used to diagnose illness and injury.
1998 - The first adult live-donor liver transplant is carried out
Skewed figures
In the village of Mevagissey in southwest England the housing stock has doubled in the last century while the number of residents is half the historic high. The village's Neighbourhood Development Plan states that 26% of homes are holiday retreats. Prices are high, averaging around £300,000, £50,000 more than the Cornish average of £250,000. The local average wage is £15,458.
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