Featured News: Car bombs kill 40 in Turkish town near Syrian border

Car bombs have killed around forty people today in the Turkish town of Rehanlı, just across the border from Syria.

While the perpetrators of this attack remain unconfirmed, the composition and current state of the town may give clues as to their identity. Rehanlı is located in Turkey's Hatay Province, which is historically linked to Syria, and before the present Syrian civil war was evenly divided in population between Alwites and Sunni Muslims. However, Rehanlı has always been proportionately more Sunni than the rest of the province, and since the outbreak of the civil war it has become an entry point for Syria refugees into Turkey. The bombs appear to have targeted the town hall and post office.

These demographic insights make it an unlikely target for jihadis linked to Syria's opposition. The al-Assad regime has always had deep links to its own jihadi and other terrorist groups which it uses as proxies, and the  Turkish government has already accused Syrian intelligence agencies of being involved. Syrian agencies have been suspected of being involved in terrorist-style bombings in the past.

It is also possible that this bombing is the work of sectarian-minded terrorists or jihadis acting independently of the Syrian government, but nevertheless anti-Sunni and anti-opposition. It is notable that after today's attacks, the members of the local Turkish population in Rehanlı attacked Syrian refugees and vehicles with Syrian number-plates.

With significant Alawite, Turkish Sunni and Syrian refugee populations throughout its southern border regions, Turkey has good reasons to fear that the sectarian conflict that has engulfed Syria, and is already spreading into Lebanon, could bleed through into Turkey as well.

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http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22494128