10 perish, 15 wounded in bomb attack in centre of Istanbul
ISTANBUL: A explosion in the heart of Istanbul’s historic Sultanahmet tourist district killed at least 10 people and wounded 15 yesterday, with some local media reports saying a suicide bomber may have been responsible.
Several bodies lay on the ground in the Sultanahmet square, close to the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sophia, a major tourist area of Turkey’s most populous city. A police officer and witness at the scene reported also seeing several bodies and body parts.
Six German citizens, one Norwegian and one Peruvian were among the wounded, the Dogan news agency said.
A tour company official said a group from Germany was in the area at the time, but that there was no immediate information on whether any of them had been injured.
An official at the German Foreign Ministry said it could not be ruled out that German citizens may have been injured and that its crisis unit and the consulate in Istanbul were urgently working with the Turkish authorities to find out.
Norway’s Foreign Ministry said one Norweigan man was injured and was being treated in hospital.
The attack at the heart of one of the world’s most visited cities comes as Turkey battles Kurdish militants in its southeast and Islamic State insurgents just across its southern borders in Syria and Iraq.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but Islamist, leftist and Kurdish militants have all carried out attacks in Turkey in the past.
The Istanbul governor’s office said the authorities were investigating the type of explosive used and who might have been responsible.
It said 10 people were killed and 15 wounded but gave no further details.
“We heard a loud sound and I looked at the sky to see if it was raining because I thought it was thunder, but the sky was clear,” said Kuwaiti tour- ist Farah Zamani, 24, who was shopping at one of the covered bazaars with her father and sister.
A police officer at the scene said the square was not densely packed at the time of the blast, but that small groups of tourists were wandering around.
“It was unimaginable,” he said, describing an amateur video he had seen of the immediate aftermath, with six or seven bodies lying on the ground and other people seriously wounded. – Reuters