Turkey says it killed major Istanbul bombing suspect in Syria drone strike

ANKARA — A Turkish drone strike this week in northern Syria killed a major suspect in the Istanbul bombing attack, media reports said on Friday. 

Turkey’s state-run Anadolu News Agency, citing Turkish security sources, reported on the strike on Friday. It identified the target as Halil Menci and said he “played a key role in the planning and execution of the bomb attack.”

The news agency said Menci was killed with a pinpoint strike in the northern Syrian town of Qamishli. 

Qamishli is under the control of the US-allied Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is a coalition of majority-Kurdish groups. Ankara holds those same groups responsible for the Istanbul bombing that killed six people, including two children, and wounded more than 80 people last November.

Kurdish groups in Syria have firmly denied any involvement in the attack.

Menci was under the “protection” of the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and had “high-level” contacts within the organization, according to Anadolu. The report stopped short of specifying the date of the drone strike, but local and international media reported that the attack on a vehicle on a road linking Qamishli and Darbasiyah in Hasakah province was carried out on Wednesday. 

🛑 #عاج

🔹تعرضت سيارة على طريق قامشلو – تربه سبيه لاستهداف يرجح أنه تم بطائرة مسيّرة. #ANHA pic.twitter.com/Ak8ZvOpft9

— hawarnews (@hawarnews) Feb. 22, 2023

An Istanbul prosecutor indicted this month 36 suspects — including top Syrian Kurdish-led SDF commander Mazloum Abdi, and Cemil Bayik, one of the main leaders of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) — over their alleged links with the attack, Turkey’s private Demiroren News Agency reported.

Ankara considers the YPG a terrorist organization and equates it with the PKK, the Kurdish armed outfit fighting for self-rule inside Turkey for some four decades. The YPG is the backbone of the Kurdish-led SDF, a major ally of the US-led international coalition in the fight against the Islamic State.

In the aftermath of the Istanbul attack, Turkey launched a series of strikes against Syrian Kurdish groups in northern Syria with one of the Turkish strikes hitting an area housing US personnel along with the top SDF commander. The attack prompted a warning by the Pentagon, calling for de-escalation.