Turkey Says It Arrested Syrian Woman Accused of Istanbul Bombing, PKK Training

Turkey said early Monday that police arrested a Syrian woman that it accuses of planting a bomb on a  popular pedestrian mall in downtown Istanbul that exploded on Sunday afternoon leaving at least six dead and more than 50 injured, including two children. Turkey’s Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu, in a statement, blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Worker’s Party, considered a terrorist group in Turkey for its insurgency calling for Kurdish self-rule in southeast Turkey. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, and Turkish authorities have not yet provided any evidence to support the accusations. Police footage aired on Turkish media shows a young woman in a purple sweatshirt being arrested in an apartment in Istanbul; she was identified as Ahlam Albashir and alleged to be a trained PKK intelligence operative. Immediately after the blast, Turkish media outlets released an image of a woman caught on security cameras who is suspected of having placed the explosive device. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in a televised address Sunday that the attack “smells like terrorism.”