6 killed in Istanbul blast horror
•Saudi Arabia condemns attack in busy city tourist center •Erdogan vows to defeat terrorism
Six people were killed and 81 others wounded on Sunday when an explosion rocked a busy pedestrian street in central Istanbul in what Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan called a bomb attack that “smells like terrorism.”
Videos posted on social media showed bodies lying on the ground in the city’s busy Istiklal Street following the blast at around 4:20 p.m. local time.
Confirming casualty numbers, Erdogan described the explosion as an “attack,” prompting Saudi Arabia’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs to condemn the incident.
The usually bustling pedestrian shopping street is a hotspot for tourists.
Speaking prior to leaving for the
G20 summit in Bali, Erdogan said: “Our nation should ensure that the perpetrators of the incident will be punished as they deserve.”
Erdogan said that the “efforts to defeat Turkiye and the Turkish people through terrorism will fail today just as they did yesterday and as they will tomorrow.”
“Our people can rest assured that the culprits behind the attack will be punished as they deserve,” he said, adding that initial information suggested “a woman played a part” in it.
“It would be wrong to say this is undoubtedly a terrorist attack but the initial developments and initial intelligence from my governor is that it smells like terrorism,” he added.
CCTV footage showed a woman leaving a bag on a bench on Istiklal Street and Turkish media reported witnesses hearing gunshots in streets around nearby Taksim Square.
Turkish anti-terror and crime scene investigation teams were quickly on the scene and cordoned off the area.
Turkiye’s media watchdog has imposed a broadcasting ban in the vicinity of the blast after fake footage was posted on social media platforms. Restrictions were also applied to Twitter, YouTube, Insliest
tagram, and Facebook.
The explosion took place near a mosque and 300 meters away from the French Consulate.
Other foreign consulates are also located on Istiklal Street which has been the scene of several terror attacks. Sunday’s blast was the dead
since December 2016.
Al-Qaeda, Daesh, and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party have all claimed responsibility for recent terror attacks in Turkiye.
During a speech in Turkiye’s Bilecik province on Saturday, Interior Minister Suleyman Soylu said that the number of terrorists operating inside Turkish territories was now down to below 120.
Turkish anti-terror teams have been conducting operations throughout the country in recent months against PKK and Daesh operatives.