32 injured as suicide bomber attacks Istanbul tourist area

A SUICIDE bomber wounded 32 people in an attack targeting Turkish police in Istanbul yesterday, in an area filled with tourists and shoppers.

• Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey's prime minister: "Those who threaten Turkey's peace and development will not be tolerated" Picture: Getty

No organisation has claimed responsibility, officials said, though the city has been targeted in the past by Kurdish separatist militants and al-Qaeda, as well as militants from Turkey's far left.

Istanbul police chief Huseyin Capkin said a man had approached police stationed at Taksim Square, before blowing himself up. Television footage immediately after the explosion appeared to show police firing warning shots and people fleeing in panic.

Some 15 policemen and 17 civilians were wounded in the attack at 10:40am in the square, but only nine, mostly police, were kept in hospital, Istanbul's governor, Huseyin Avni Mutlu, said.

Taksim Square is a tourist and transport hub surrounded by restaurants, shops and hotels, at the heart of modern Istanbul.

The bomber struck near police buses parked close to a monument commemorating Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, the founder of modern Turkey.

The police presence in Taksim is raised around national holidays such as Republic Day, which was celebrated on Friday.

A taxi driver told CNN Turk news channel he saw a man aged about 30-33 approach the police to ask directions, at which point the bomb detonated. Another witness said he saw two men.

According to the governor, police seized plastic explosives found with a detonator at the scene, though it was unclear whether they had been part of a second bomb.

Prime minister Tayyip Erdogan was visiting Mardin, in the mainly Kurdish south-east, when the blast struck his home town.

"Those who threaten Turkey's peace, security and development will not be tolerated," he said in a televised speech.

"These kinds of attacks will not stop Turkey reaching its goals of peace, brotherhood and development."

Istanbul is the business and financial centre of Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim nation of around 75 million people that is hoping to become a member of the European Union.

The city has been targeted before by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) rebels, but the separatist group extended a unilateral ceasefire last month, and on Saturday said it would announce in the coming days whether it would extend it further. PKK suicide bombers have attacked security forces in the past, but not for many years.

Al-Qaeda suicide bombers carried out a series of attacks in Istanbul in November 2003 that killed 62 people. In recent weeks Turkish police have made several arrests of people suspected of providing support to al-Qaeda militants fighting in Afghanistan.

Yesterday, the Anatolia news agency reported that police in Istanbul and other cities had detained 16 members of a leftist militant organisation, the Revolutionary People's Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C).The report made no connection with the Istanbul attack, but in 2001 a DHKP/C suicide bomber killed two people in Taksim Square.