8 foreigners reported injured in Istanbul blast

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said in televised remarks that both Turks and foreigners were among the dead in the explosion in the Sultanahmet district.

Erdem Koroglu, who was working at a nearby office at the time of the explosion, told NTV television he saw several people lying on the ground following the blast.

“It was hard to say who was alive or dead”, Koroglu said.

While the breakdown of victims wasn’t clear around midday, what happened was enough to spur Merkel’s foreign ministry to issue a travel warning for Turkey, which is a popular destination for German tourists.

Ten people were killed and 15 wounded in a suspected terrorist attack today in the main tourist hub of Turkey’s largest city Istanbul, officials said.

“I strongly condemn the terror incident that occurred in Istanbul, at the Sultanahmet Square, and which has been assessed as being an attack by a Syria-rooted suicide bomber”, Erdogan said.

Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus said that the majority of those killed were foreigners, and that the bomber had been identified as a Syrian national born in 1988.

German media reports say the country’s foreign ministry is investigating reports that German citizens have been hurt in the blast. He did not provide further details. Seoul’s Foreign Ministry also told reporters via text message that one South Korean had a slight finger injury after the blast.

“We’re taking precautions against a second explosion”, one police officer said, ushering people out of the square.

The work of subway stations in the city was suspended after the explosion.

Istanbul’s governor’s office said in a statement: “Investigations into the cause of the explosion, the type of explosion and perpetrator or perpetrators are under way”.

The private Dogan news agency says at least two people were hospitalized following an explosion in the historic center of Istanbul.

Its anti-ISIS moves include allowing the United States to launch strikes from Incirlik Air Base in southern Turkey as well as clamping down along its border to prevent more fighters from joining the group.

That attack was blamed on Islamic State (IS) jihadists, as were two other deadly bombings in the country’s Kurdish-dominated southeast earlier in the year.