The assassins had chosen a place and a time where they could count on a lot of attention and many victims.

Istanbul's pedestrian street Istiklal Caddesi is one of the liveliest places in Turkey almost 24 hours a day and is considered the epitome of urban leisure culture.

However, no other place in the whole country is monitored as closely as this street, with riot police officers always standing at the upper entrance on Taksim Square.

Densely placed surveillance cameras also make it possible to follow events along the street across the board.

Rainer Herman

Editor in Politics.

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And so it was, the Istanbul police said on Monday, that 1,200 surveillance cameras led to the identification of the alleged assassin and, after 31 raids and 46 arrests, to her arrest in the Kücükcekmece district.

This came just 10 hours after the bomb detonated, killing six Turkish nationals aged between nine and 38 and injuring more than 80 others.

At first the news was bleak.

The government imposed an unprecedented news blackout, social media platform servers were shut down and the internet was slowed down in what they said was the reason to prevent panic from spreading.

The government then asked the media to report only what was officially announced, and investigations into social media post authors were launched as late as Sunday.

Quickly assigning blame to the PKK

Shortly after the attack, which took place around 4:20 p.m., the Istanbul police released footage from a surveillance camera showing a woman who police said had been sitting on a bench for 40 minutes.

Then she got up, left a suspicious object behind, and the detonation took place.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan was one of the first to speak out after the attack.

Immediately before his departure for the G20 summit in Bali, he spoke of a "sneaky attack" and added that there was "a smell of terror" in the air.

At that time Interior Minister Süleyman Soylu was on his way to Istanbul.

At the scene of the attack, he recapitulated what he had seen on the surveillance cameras.

Although no one had claimed responsibility for the attack, Soylu pointed to the Kurds and specifically to the PKK.

The assassins, i.e. the woman and the circle around her, received their instructions from the Syrian Kurds, according to Soylu.

Then, shortly before a possible meeting between Erdogan and US President Joe Biden in Bali, he launched an all-out attack on the United States.

The arrested assassin is a Syrian citizen, and since the United States feeds the Syrian Kurds of the YPG and PYD, an offshoot of the PKK, it is obvious who the perpetrator is.

It is fitting that the alleged assassin, who is said to be 23 years old, wore a hoodie with the words "New York" on it in the photo that the police distributed of her.

Affront to USA and Greece

Turkey will give a "very strong" response, Soylu announced, outraged by the "disingenuousness of our allies".

He therefore rejects the condolences of the American ambassador in Ankara.

Then he criticized neighboring Greece: "If we hadn't caught the terrorists, they would have fled to Greece."

The Istanbul police announced details on Monday that seem to point further to the perpetrators of Syrian Kurds.

The assassin who planted the bomb received military training with others in northern Syria and infiltrated Turkey via the Afrin region.

In addition, the assassin received her order from Kobane, where the PKK has its headquarters in Syria.

In doing so, the police made it clear that there was no difference between the PKK, which is considered a terrorist organization not only in Turkey but also in the EU, and its Syrian offshoot, which is not classified as a terrorist organization in the EU.

In a military offensive at the beginning of 2018, the Turkish army occupied the Afrin region, which was then predominantly inhabited by Syrian Kurds, and expelled the local population.

On Monday afternoon, however, the perpetrators no longer seemed so clear.

Because in Ankara, a government representative said that the perpetrators of the "Islamic State" (IS) could not be ruled out and that investigations were also being carried out in this direction.

Both the PKK and the IS have left their trail of blood on busy squares in Istanbul.

The year 2016 was particularly deadly, with three terrorist attacks by IS in Istanbul and two more by militant Kurds.