Explosions at airport in Istanbul leave at least 28 dead

ISTANBUL — Two explosions at Turkey’s largest airport left at least 28 people dead and injured as many as 60 people Tuesday night, according to Turkish authorities and television reports.

The Turkish justice min- ister, Bekir Bozdag, said 28 people had been killed in a bombing attack on Ataturk airport. He said one attacker fired an automatic weapon before blowing himself up.

Another Turkish government official said the police fired shots at two suspected attackers at the entryway to the airport’s international terminal in an effort to stop them before they reached the building’s security checkpoint. The two suspects then blew themselves up, the official said.

CNN Turk reported one suicide bomber detonated explosives inside the terminal building and another outside in a parking lot.

NTV reported that airport workers were streaming out of the building, crying. A witness told CNN Turk that injured people were being taken away in taxis, Reuters reported.

Turkey has been rocked by a series of bombings in recent months. Officials have variously blamed Kurdish separatists or Islamic State militants for the attacks.

Ataturk airport has expanded in recent years and is now the third busiest in Europe, ranked by the annual number of passengers, after Heathrow in London and Charles de Gaulle in Paris.