2013 Reyhanlı car bombings

On Saturday, 11 May 2013, Turkey's two Deputy Prime Ministers Bülent Arınç and Besir Atalay said "the Syrian Mukhabarat and armed organizations are the usual suspects in planning and the carrying out of such devilish plans",[9] and Turkish sources accused Syria of being "behind the attacks".[15] Syria, according to information minister Omran al-Zoubi, immediately denied responsibility for the attacks, stating: "Syria [...] would never commit such an act because our values would not allow that."[13][16]

On 11 May, Turkish authorities said they had detained nine Turks with links to the Syrian Mukhabarat (military intelligence service) as suspects in the bombings.[15][17]

On 13 May, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said that he held the Syrian government responsible.[18] By 21 May, Turkey had charged 12 Turkish nationals with the attacks, which they alleged were backed by the Syrian government.[5] On 25 May, Erdogan repeated his accusation that the Syrian regime was behind the attack.[19]

Nasir Eskiocak, a Turkish national captured by the Turkish police on 10 June 2013 and for a while the prime suspect of the attack, said the attack was ordered by the Syrian Mukhabarat, and then organized by him.[20]

On 12 September 2018, the Turkish National Intelligence Organization announced that they had captured Yusuf Nazik, who they alleged is one of the main suspects of the 2013 bombing. He was captured by Turkish intelligence in the Syrian regime-controlled city of Latakia. Nazik, born in the Antakya district of the province of Hatay, confessed in a video-recorded confession that he played a key part in the bombing as a coordinator between the bombers and the Syrian regime, which he said masterminded the attack. He referred to a Syrian intelligence officer named Mohammed, who had the codename "Hadji".[21]

• Al-Nusra: Mehmet Ali Ediboglu (CHP), representing Hatay Province in the Turkish parliament, said on 14 May 2013 he believed the al-Nusra Front (Jabhat al-Nusra) to have planted the bombs, in an attempt "to get Turkey into the war".[18]
• al-Qaeda elements: On 25 May 2013, the Turkish hacker group RedHack alleged that leaked or hacked documents of Turkey's Gendarmerie intelligence department linked al-Qaeda-related groups in Syria to the attack, which was denied by Justice and Development Party (AKP) vice president Hüseyin Çelik. Çelik stated that the documents were leaked by a private using a cell phone but its content is unrelated to the bombings and the private is under arrest.[22][23][24][25][26]
  On 27 March 2014, also Tacan İldem, Turkey's Ambassador to the OCSE, said 11 May 2013 attack was carried out by "al-Qaeda elements operating out of Syria", which, in May 2013, may have meant either Jabhat al-Nusra or ISIL.[19][27] That statement was contradicted on 6 April 2014 in a written statement of the Turkish Foreign Ministry who stuck to their conviction that the attack was carried out with support from the Syrian government.[28]
• ISIL: Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) in late September 2013, while threatening Turkey with suicide attacks if Turkey would not reopen its Syrian border crossings at Bab al-Hawa and Bab al-Salameh before 7 October, claimed responsibility for the Reyhanli attack of 11 May 2013.[29][30][31][32][33][34][35][36]

Turkish authorities on 12 May 2013 suspected that former Turkish Marxist group Acilciler, now thought to be based in Syria, might have been revived by his leader Mihrac Ural, and might have ordered the attack.[15] Acilciler was, according to The Huffington Post, long-rumored to have been formed by the Syrian military intelligence service Mukhabarat.[15] The Turkish government on 12 May 2013 believed that Ural and his group, with their ties to pro-government Syrian groups, had carried out the attack.[15] Mihraç Ural, in return, has implicated the Turkish Intelligence Organization.

In 2015, former Adana prosecutor Özcan Şişman said in a letter to the Cumhuriyet newspaper that he was warned by MIT officers about a planned bombing attack in 2012 and 2013, three days before the Reyhanli attack. And that he was urged by the officers to carry out an operation against the cell. Şişman said he refused to carry out the operation and did not inform the police.[37] Şişman was arrested in the same year and was sentenced 17 years in prison in 2019 for obtaining and exposing state secrets and being a member of the Gülen movement.[38]

The Reyhanlı Court of Peace ordered all voice, written, and visual publications referring to the blasts' aftermath banned, including content describing, and images of, the injured and the dead. The court ruled that the written and visual content would jeopardize the confidentiality and outcome of the ongoing prosecution.[43] On 16 May 2013, the Hatay First Criminal Court cancelled the order issued by the Reyhanlı Court of Peace.[44] Only the state-run Anatolia news agency and Turkish Radio and Television Corporation (TRT) were allowed to cover visits by Justice Minister Sadullah Ergin and Health Minister Mehmet Müezzinoğlu to the injured in Antakya State Hospital. When the main opposition leader Kemal Kılıçdaroğlu, of the Republican People's Party (CHP), visited the victims at the same hospital on Monday, only reporters from Anatolia and TRT were allowed to cover Kılıçdaroğlu's visit, while reporters from the Cihan News Agency, the İhlas News Agency and the Doğan News Agency were not allowed to do so.[45]

Several media unions protested the media ban imposed on the Reyhanlı bombings and appealed to the courts to remove the ban immediately. The media ban was condemned by several journalistic organizations in Turkey. Atilla Sertel, the chairperson of the Journalists Federation of Turkey, stated that such bans would cause major misinformation and would result in misleading the public. The Press Institute Association of Turkey claimed the court order upholding the ban was a censure and a major blow to press freedom.[43]

Turkish Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu said, "There may be those who want to sabotage Turkey's peace, but we will not allow that. No one should attempt to test Turkey's power. Our security forces will take all necessary measures."[9] Speaking in Berlin, he said that the bombings were a consequence of global inaction in intervening in the Syrian civil war.[46]

Opposition leader Kemal Kilicdaroglu held Erdogan accountable for the bombings and compared him to Syria's president Assad. Erdogan threatened to sue him in response.[47][48]

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi placed responsibility for the attacks on the Turkish authorities and said, "it was the Turkish government that had facilitated the flow of arms, explosives, vehicles, fighters and money across the border into Syria", and thus "had turned the border areas into centres for international terrorism".[13]

The UN Security Council strongly condemned the Reyhanli bombings, stating, "Any acts of terrorism are criminal and unjustifiable, regardless of their motivation, wherever, whenever and by whomsoever committed."[49] NATO Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen also condemned the attack, calling it "despicable", and said that NATO stood by Turkey.[9]

British Foreign Secretary William Hague issued a Twitter statement saying, "My thoughts are with family and friends of the victims. We stand with the people of Turkey."[9] United States Ambassador Francis Ricciardone stated that the U.S. "strongly condemns today's vicious attack, and stands with the people and government of Turkey to identify the perpetrators and bring them to justice."[50]