Kurdish militants claim responsibility for deadly stadium attack in Turkey

Turkish police officers stand guarded near the flag-draped coffins of police officers killed in yesterday&#039;s blast on December 11, 2016 in Istanbul, Turkey

(Image credit: Getty Images)

published 11 December 2016

Dual attacks on Saturday evening — one a car bomb and one a suicide bomb — near an Istanbul soccer stadium killed 38 people and injured 155 more. Most victims were police officers on hand to deal with crowds following a soccer game.

Responsibility for the attack was claimed Sunday by the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), an offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has staged other attacks in Turkey this year. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared a national day of mourning while Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu promised retribution "no matter what the price" in a fiery speech at funeral ceremonies for those killed.

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Bonnie Kristian was a deputy editor and acting editor-in-chief of TheWeek.com. She is a columnist at Christianity Today and author of Untrustworthy: The Knowledge Crisis Breaking Our Brains, Polluting Our Politics, and Corrupting Christian Community (forthcoming 2022) and A Flexible Faith: Rethinking What It Means to Follow Jesus Today (2018). Her writing has also appeared at Time Magazine, CNN, USA Today, Newsweek, the Los Angeles Times, and The American Conservative, among other outlets.

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