Several Dead and Wounded after Istanbul Explosion

Ambulances and police were dispatched to Sultanahmet, the city’s main tourist hub, which is home to world-famous monuments including the Blue Mosque and the Hagia Sophia, television reports said.

The Istanbul governor’s office said the explosion killed at least 10 people and injured 15 others.

“Investigations into the cause of the explosion, the type of explosion and perpetrator or perpetrators are underway”, said the governor’s office in a statement. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry told Norway’s news agency NTB that the Norwegian tourist was slightly hurt and was being treated in a local hospital. That attack was initially claimed by a far-left group, the DHKP-C, but officials later said it had been carried out by a woman with suspected Islamist militant links.

Some reports suggest it was caused by a female suicide bomber but this has yet to be confirmed.

“The explosion was so loud, the ground shook”. A South Korean tourist and a tour guide are believed to have sustained minor injuries.

One police officer said authorities were taking “precautions” against a second blast.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu held an emergency meeting in Ankara with the interior minister and security chiefs.

“I started running away with my daughter”. He said that the German government is in contact with Turkish authorities and condemned the attack as a “barbaric act of terrorism”.

Turkish officials told The Wall Street Journal that they were looking at the possibility the blast was the work of a suicide bomber belonging to either the Sunni Muslim extremist group Islamic State or the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, better known as the PKK.

Turkey has been on alert since October 10 when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd of peace activists in Ankara in the bloodiest attack in the country’s modern history. Kurdish militants and left-wing groups are active in Turkey.

“The first target of all terrorist organizations that operate in this region is Turkey, because Turkey fights all of them without discrimination and with the same determination”.