Aaron Stein, associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute for Defence and Security Studies, said the attack appeared to target Kurds and was "a spillover of their fight with Isis".
By attacking Turkey directly, "Isis would be signalling a big shift in its military modus operandi, which is to leave Turkey alone in favour of consolidating its gains inside Syria. Any major provocation against Turkey risks bringing it more forcefully into the war. So this may not be an attack on Turkey per se."
Suruc is a bastion of support for the People's Protection Units (YPG), the Western-backed Kurdish militia that has led the fight against Isis along Syria's northern border with Turkey. The town is also home to one of the biggest refugee camps housing Syrians who have fled the bloody conflict at home, sheltering 35,000 refugees.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the Turkish President, condemned the attack which left 100 injured as an "act of terror". Turkish officials said they believed a female Isis sympathiser was responsible. A local journalist reported that one witness said she had seen a young woman in a suicide vest. A second official also said that Isis appeared to have been responsible and that the attack was a "retaliation for the Turkish Government's efforts to fight terrorism".
Erdogan's Government has cracked down on Isis recruitment networks in recent weeks.
Before the suicide bomber struck, dozens of young Turkish and Kurdish men and women shared food around long tables at the cultural centre. A video was taken of activists holding the federation's flag and a large banner saying: "We defended it together, we are building it together". It was at that moment the explosion tore through the group. In the footage, survivors can be heard screaming as bodies lie strewn across the remains of the shattered table frames.
"I saw more than 20 bodies," said one witness. "It was a huge explosion, we all shook."
Fatma Edemen, 22, said: "One of my friends protected me. First I thought 'I am dying', but I was okay. I started to run after I saw the bodies," she said as she sought treatment for injuries to her legs. She said the group had believed Kobane was relatively safe. "Our friends went there and it didn't seem dangerous at that time. We couldn't even think something like that would happen," she said.
- Telegraph Group Ltd, Washington Post-Bloomberg
