Turkey arrests 9 in connection with deadly bombings

46 reported dead and 50 still hospitalized from Saturday blasts; Ankara blames Syrian intelligence for attacks; Syria denies allegations

REYHANLI, Turkey — Turkey’s interior minister says authorities have detained nine people in connection with the car bomb attacks that killed 46 people in a Turkish town near the Syrian border on Saturday.

Muammer Güler says the attacks were carried out by a group linked to Syria’s intelligence service, but did not name the group. “This incident was carried out by an organization which is in close contact to pro-regime groups in Syria and I say this very clearly, with the Syrian mukhabarat,” he said, referring to Syrian intelligence.

Güler added that authorities have so far identified 35 people who died in the attack; three of them were Syrians. Around 50 other people were still being treated in hospitals.

Güler said that the nine arrested were Turkish citizens and included the mastermind behind the bombings, according to a Hurriyet Daily News report. The massive blasts caused damage to over 732 workplaces, 62 vehicles, eight public buildings and 120 individual houses, he added.

The blasts raised fears that Turkey could increasingly be drawn into Syria’s civil war.

Syrian Information Minister Omran al-Zoubi on Sunday rejected Turkey’s allegations that his country was behind the car bombs. He told a news conference that “no one has the right to make false accusations” and that “this is not the behavior of the Syrian government.”

Zoubi’s comments were the first official Syrian response since Saturday’s bombings in the Turkish border town of Reyhanli, near Syria.

The Syrian minister alleged that Turkey is responsible “for all that happened in Syria and what happened in Turkey yesterday,” but did not explain.

He also launched one of the harshest personal attacks on Turkey’s prime minister by a Syrian official to date, demanding that Recep Tayyip Erdogan “step down as a killer and as a butcher.”

Turkey already hosts Syria’s political opposition and rebel commanders, has given shelter to hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees, and in the past retaliated against Syrian shells that landed in Turkey.