Backgrounder: Terrorist attacks on Turkey in recent years
Xinhua, March 14, 2016 Adjust font size:
A car bomb exploded in central Ankara on Sunday, killing at least 37 people and injuring 125 others, 19 of whom are in serious condition.
This is the second massive terrorist attack the capital city has suffered in less than a month.
On Feb. 17, a bomb-laden automobile struck military service buses, killing 29 people not too far from Sunday's attack. The government said the suicide attacker was a member of the Kurdish Workers Party (PKK) and its Syrian offshoot the Democratic Union Party. Later the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons, a PKK affiliate, publicly claimed the responsibility for it.
Turkey has been a frequent target of terrorist attacks in recent years. Some of the major attacks are listed below.
On Jan. 12, at least 10 people were killed and 15 others wounded in an explosion that hit Istanbul's historic Sultanahmet Square, which Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed on a Syrian suicide bomber.
On Oct. 10, 2015, a total of 95 people were killed in deadly twin blasts that hit a train station in Ankara.
The explosions rocked the train station where several unions, civic society organizations and pro-Kurdish People's Democracy Party were due to hold a rally.
On July 20, 2015, a blast hit the garden of Amara Cultural Center of Suruc district in Sanliurfa province, near Turkey's border with Syria, killing a total of 28 people and injuring 100 others.
On May 11, 2013, a pair of deadly car bombings occurred in Reyhanli, a Turkish town on the border with Syria, killing at least 45 people and injuring over 100 others.
On Feb. 1, 2013, a suicide bomber struck a checkpoint on the perimeter of the U.S. embassy in Ankara earlier in the day, killing a security guard and injuring seriously a visiting Turkish female reporter.
The U.S. government strongly denounced the deadly attack against its embassy, calling it an act of terror. Endi