Foreign Office checking for British victims of Istanbul blast

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said a Syrian suicide bomber is believed to have been responsible for the attack which caused the deaths of foreigners as well as Turks.

“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.

The powerful blast rocked the Sultanahmet neighbourhood which is home to Istanbul’s biggest concentration of monuments and is visited by tens of thousands of tourists every day.

In response to the attack, on their website the Irish department of foreign affairs has strongly advised Irish travellers against “travelling to the border areas between Turkey and Syria in light of the current instability in the region, in particular the provinces of Hatay, Kilis, Gaziantep, Sanliurfa and Mardin”.

At least two people were hospitalized, the private Dogan news agency reported.

Police secure the area after the explosion in central Istanbul. It was Turkey’s deadliest attack.

Istanbul’s governor said 10 people were killed and at least 15 wounded.

“The explosion was very loud”.

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

The boring thud of the explosion was heard in districts of Istanbul several kilometres away, residents said.

The sound of the call to prayer rang out from the Blue Mosque as forensic police officers worked at the scene. “I am 100 per cent sure it wasn’t just a bomb, but a suicide bomber”, he added. The prosecutor’s office said that attack was carried out by a local Islamic State cell.

Turkey has been on high alert after a series of attacks blamed on the Islamic State militant group including a double suicide bombing in the capital Ankara in October that left 103 people dead.

The PKK has however generally avoided attacking civilian targets in urban centres outside the southeast in recent years. “I started running away with my daughter”.

“This is not good for Turkey but everyone was expecting a terrorist attack”, he said.

Citing national security, the government issued a temporary news ban on the blast, forcing news organizations to stop coverage.