A couple dance by the Golden Horn leading to the Bosphorus Strait separating Europe and Asia, in Istanbul, Friday, May 14, 2021. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

A person rides a swing hanging from a crane with hot air balloons fly in the background in Nevsehir, Turkey on October 14, 2021. Tourists and those who want to take photos set up swings on the cranes they rent and then have their photos taken in the setting created by hot air balloons in the backgrounds. (Photo by Behcet Alkan/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

In one of the deadliest attacks in Turkey in recent years, two car bombs exploded near the border with Syria on Saturday, killing 43 and wounding 140 others. Turkish officials blamed the attack on a group linked to Syria, and a deputy prime minister called the neighboring country's intelligence service and military "the usual suspects."

The blasts, which were 15 minutes apart and hit the town of Reyhanli's busiest street, raised fears that Turkey could increasingly be drawn into Syria's brutal civil war.

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.

Suat Demir, a 52-year-old parter, smokes a cigarette after finishing his work day in Istanbul, Turkey, Thursday, October 2, 2025. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

A woman visits St Savior in Chora church, known as Kariye in Turkish, in Istanbul, Friday, August 21, 2020. Turkey on Friday formally converted former Byzantine church, St Savior in Chora, into a mosque, a month after it similarly turned Istanbul's landmark Hagia Sophia into a Muslim house of prayer, drawing international rebuke. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

A seagull files over a man sitting at a coffee shop backdropped by the Bosporus Strait in Istanbul, Tuesday, November 17, 2020. (Photo by Emrah Gurel/AP Photo)

Birds are seen at Kizilirmak Bird Paradise in Turkey's Samsun on April 22, 2021. Kizilirmak Delta Bird Sanctuary, which is on the UNESCO World Heritage Tentative List and hosts 359 to 487 species of birds in Turkey, became more active with the arrival of spring. (Photo by Mehmet Kumcagiz/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)

Muslims greet each other at Sultanahmet Square after performing Eid al-Adha prayer at Hagia Sophia Grand Mosque in Istanbul, Turkey on July 20, 2021. (Photo by Mehmet Murat Onel/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)