Ten dead, fifteen wounded in Istanbul blast

The cause of the explosion, which could be heard from several neighborhoods, was not immediately known but state-run TRT television says the blast was likely caused by a suicide bomber.

The square lies between two of Istanbul’s most popular tourist attractions, the Blue Mosque and Hagia Sofia.

Media reports said the blast took place at 0820 GMT around the Obelisk of Theodosius, a monument from ancient Egypt which was re-erected by the Roman Emperor Theodosius and is one of the city’s most eye-catching monuments. A senior official said “terrorist links” were suspected in the attack, but declined to comment further. 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.

A Kurdish splinter group, the Freedom Falcons of Kurdistan (TAK), claimed a mortar attack on Istanbul’s second worldwide airport on December 23 which killed a female cleaner and damaged several planes.

A German tourist died in the attack.

The dead include a “significant number” of foreign nationals, Kurtulmus said.

Turkey, a North Atlantic Treaty Organisation member and candidate for accession to the European Union, is part of a U.S.-led coalition against Islamic State fighters who have seized territory in neighbouring Syria and Iraq.

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.

Police are evaluating the possibility of a suicide bomber, CNN-Turk television reported, without saying how it got the information.

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.

“I started running away with my daughter”.

More than 100 people were killed by two suicide blasts in Turkey’s capital Ankara in October and over 30 were killed in an attacks near the Syrian border in July.