4 detained after 11 die in Istanbul car bomb blast
Print Edition
TURKISH police detained four people in a hunt for the perpetrators of a car bombing in central Istanbul yesterday that killed seven police and four civilians.
The third attack in Turkey’s biggest city within six months targeted a bus transporting anti-riot police in Beyazit district, close to many of the city’s top tourist sites, Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said .
Thirty-six people were wounded, three of them seriously, he added.
The four suspects were taken to police headquarters in Istanbul for interrogation, state-run Anatolia agency said, without providing further information.
There was no early claim of responsibility, but President Recep Tayyip Erdogan suggested the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, was behind the attack.
For the PKK to target major cities such as Istanbul “is nothing new”, he said after visiting the injured at an Istanbul hospital. “We will fight against terrorists relentlessly to the end.”
Erdogan also vowed the culprits would “pay the price for the blood they shed.”
Kurdish militants have repeatedly targeted Turkey’s security forces, but Islamic State jihadists have also staged attacks around the country, including in Istanbul, in the past year.
The explosion took place close to Vezneciler metro station, within walking distance of some of the city’s main tourist sites, including the Grand Bazaar and Suleymaniye Mosque.
The blast reduced the police vehicle to mangled wreckage and windows in nearby shops were shattered. Shots were heard afterwards.
The attack occurred outside the upscale Celal Aga Konagi Hotel, a converted Ottoman mansion that is favored by foreign tourists.
The 16th-century Sehzade Mosque — considered one of the greatest masterpieces of Ottoman architect Mimar Sinan — was also damaged by the force of the explosion.
Television footage showed the mosque’s windows blown out and debris littering the floor.
Loudspeakers on mosques warned people to vacate the area, after which a controlled explosion was carried out on a suspect vehicle.
French President Francois Hollande condemned the attack as an “intolerable act of violence” that should strengthen common resolve to fight terrorism.
Yesterday’s bombing, which occurred on the second day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, is the latest in a string of attacks that have rattled citizens and damaged tourism.
Two blasts in Ankara claimed by the Kurdistan Freedom Falcons — a radical splinter group of the PKK — earlier this year claimed dozens of lives.
Last month, at least eight people, including soldiers, were wounded by a remotely-detonated car bomb targeting a military vehicle in Istanbul that was claimed by the PKK.
On January 12, a dozen German tourists died in a bombing in the heart of Istanbul’s tourist district blamed on IS.
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