Another tragic event in Turkey has made headlines this week. Late Saturday night in Turkey, a suicide bomber killed 51 people at an outdoor wedding. The attack hit the wedding celebration in a conservative Kurdish neighborhood in the city of Gaziantep, near the Syrian border. This attack has more causalities and injuries than the attack on the Ataturk Airport, which killed 44 people. There is a suspicion that ISIS was behind the attack. The bomber is assumed to be between the age of 12 and 14. The authorities at the scene of the attack found the suicide vest, but are unsure if the bomber blew himself up with the vest, or it was detonated remotely. Among those killed were men, women, and many children. There were 69 people injured and 17 of them are in critical condition.

Turkish President, Tayyip Erdogan, spoke out on the attack saying,

"The initial findings of the governor and our police forces indicate the attack has been perpetrated by Daesh (another term for ISIS). As you know, Daesh is trying to position and organize itself in Gaziantep. Security operations have been conducted and are still being conducted against the terrorist organization."

There are many speculations of why the wedding was bombed. Many believe the motivation was to strike Kurdish targets because the Kurdish military has won several battlefield victories against ISIS. There are also many ethnic tensions in the town of the bombing, so ISIS may have wanted to increase those tensions even more.

Turkey has had bombings and killings almost consistently this past year. Joe Biden will be traveling to Turkey this upcoming week to discuss how this attack will affect the future of Turkey and how to prevent these bombings.