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Suicide bomb attack in Istanbul kills 5, at least 20 wounded Apparent suicide bombing kills at least 5 in Istanbul shopping area
(35 minutes later)
ISTANBUL — A suicide attacker detonated a bomb on Istanbul’s main pedestrian shopping street on Saturday, killing five people, the city’s governor said. Twenty other people were injured in the attack. The attacker was among the dead. BEIRUT — An apparent suicide bombing Saturday at a popular shopping area in Istanbul killed at least five people and wounded others amid a wave of attacks by Kurdish and Islamic State militants that have rocked Turkey.
Governor Vasip Sahin said the explosion occurred outside a local government office on Istiklal Street, which is also home to cafes, restaurants and foreign consulate buildings. Sahin said one of wounded victims died in hospital. The private Dogan news agency said at least three of the injured are Israeli nationals. The blast targeted the city’s Istiklal Street, a major thoroughfare of international shopping outlets and restaurants that bustles with tourists on weekends. Five people had been confirmed dead and more than 20 wounded, Istanbul’s governor, Vasip Sahin, told the privately owned Dogan news agency.
Police sealed off the area and a forensic team was at the scene. Images on social media showed police cordoning off the area. One video on Twitter purports to show the moment of the blast, with a bright flash going off amid a street filled with pedestrians.
Turkey was already on edge following two recent suicide car bomb attacks in the capital, Ankara, which were claimed by a Kurdish militant group, which is an off-shoot of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK. The most recent attack, on March 13, targeted a line of bus stops on Ankara’s busiest street and killed 37 including two bombers. There were no immediate claims of responsibility, but suspicion has undoubtedly fallen on Kurdish separatists who are waging a war in Turkey’s southeast.
“It was one loud explosion,” said Muhammed Fatur, a Syrian who works at a butcher shop near the scene of Saturday’s explosion. “Police came to the scene and sealed off the area.” Saturday’s attack further suggests that this conflict is spilling over into urban areas, with bombings targeting both Turkish soldiers and civilians in recent weeks.
Turkey had heightened security in Ankara and Istanbul in the run-up to a Kurdish spring festival of Newroz on March 21, which Kurds in Turkey traditionally use to assert their ethnic identity and demand greater rights. Kurdish militants claimed responsibility for a car bomb last week that struck a square of shops and restaurants in the capital, Ankara, killing at least 37 people. The Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, asserted responsibility for an attack Feb. 17 in Ankara that killed 28 Turkish soldiers.
___ Turkish armed forces also are waging cross-border strikes in Syria against the Islamic State group, which has carried out bombings in Turkey in recent months. One of those attacks killed more than 100 people in the capital at a Kurdish peace rally in October.
Fraser reported from Ankara
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