Arrests over Sunday's Istanbul terror attack rise to 50

ISTANBUL

The number of suspects arrested by Turkish security forces rose to 50 on Tuesday amid the deadly weekend terrorist attack on Istanbul's Istiklal Avenue.

Two more suspects, Ammar J. and his brother Ahmed J., were nabbed by Turkish police, said security sources on condition of anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.

The suspect Ahmed J. was reportedly planning to smuggle Syrian terrorist Ahlam Albashir to Greece following the bombing that claimed six lives and injured 81 others, two of them critically.

Meanwhile, Ammar J. took a fugitive, known as suspect B, who lived in the same house as Albashir, to the northwestern province of Edirne to be smuggled to Bulgaria before he returned to Istanbul.

The proceedings of the 50 suspects nabbed as part of the investigation are ongoing.

Turkish police arrested Albashir, the perpetrator of the attack on Istiklal Avenue, who planted the explosives, in a pre-dawn raid hours after the explosion.

The police said Albashir has confessed that she was trained by the YPG/PYD/PKK terror group as an intelligence operative and entered Türkiye illegally from the area of Afrin in northwestern Syria.

In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Türkiye, the PKK -- listed as a terrorist organization by Türkiye, the US and the EU -- has been responsible for the deaths of some 40,000 people, including women, children and infants. The YPG is the terror group's Syrian offshoot.

*Writing by Zehra Nur Duz.