Five killed in another suicide bombing in Istanbul

A SUICIDE attack on Istanbul’s main pedestrian shopping street has killed five people, including two dual nationality Israeli-Americans and one Iranian citizen. Several dozen others were wounded in the attack which is the sixth suicide bombing in Turkey in the past year.

The bombing hit part of Istiklal Street, a long pedestrian zone lined with global brand name shops and foreign consulates, just a few hundred metres from an area where police buses are usually parked.

Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu issued a statement saying there were several foreigners among the victims.

“Turkey has always said that terrorism has no religion, no language and no race and that terrorism has to be condemned no matter who the perpetrators are,” he said. “This sad event has shown once again how right our position is.”

There was no immediate claim of responsibility but suspicion fell on the Islamic State group and on Kurdish militants who have claimed two recent attacks in the capital, Ankara. DNA samples were taken from family members of two possible Islamic State militants who could be the bomber, the private Turkish Dogan news agency reported.

“The attacker detonated the bomb before reaching the targeted point because they were scared of the police,” a Turkish official told Reuters adding the bomber had planned to hit a more crowded spot.

The explosion ripped through Istiklal Street, a popular destination for tourists and locals in a central neighbourhood that is home to cafes, restaurants, foreign consulates and a government office. Istanbul Governor Vasip Sahin said there were five fatalities and that investigations were still under way. An interior ministry official said the death toll included the suicide bomber.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu confirmed that at least two of the victims were Israelis. An Israeli diplomat in Istanbul said the two also held American citizenship.

“We can sadly confirm that two Israeli civilians were killed and we might have a third fatality,” he said.

Israel was co-operating with other intelligence agencies to determine whether the attack was directed at Israelis specifically. Two planes were being sent to Istanbul to evacuate others wounded in the blast.

The majority of the Israelis caught up in the attack were on a culinary tour of the city, officials said. The group had just eaten breakfast nearby when the blast ripped through the street. Israeli media named one of the victims as 60-year-old Simha Damari, a mother of four and said her husband was also wounded in the attack. Ned Price, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, confirmed that two American citizens were among those killed in the Istanbul attack. Their identities were not released.

A group of Iranian tourists were also among the victims. Alireza Razmkhah, 45, was killed and his wife, Azan, and baby, Diana, were wounded, according to IRNA, the official Iranian news agency. An elderly woman was also wounded in the attack, but was in stable condition, the agency reported.

Turkey’s health minister, Mehmet Muezzinoglu, said the 36 people wounded in the attack included six Israelis, two Irish citizens and one person each from Iceland, Germany, Dubai and Iran. Istanbul’s governor later raised the number of injured to 39 and said 24 of them were foreigners, without providing a breakdown by nationalities.

The Irish foreign and trade minister, Charlie Flanagan, expressed “horror and sadness” at the attack and confirmed that a number of Irish citizens were among the injured.

After the attack police swiftly sealed off the area as ambulances and a forensic team rushed to the scene. Normally packed cafes were either closed or virtually empty, with business owners making frantic calls to loved ones to assure them of their safety. Rattled tourists wondered where to go.

“It was one loud explosion,” said Muhammed Fatur, a Syrian who works at a butcher shop near the scene of the explosion. “Police came to the scene and sealed off the area.”

The site remained off limits until shortly after sundown when tentative pedestrians and shopkeepers returned to inspect the damage.

“My local shopkeeper told me someone had blown himself up and I walked towards the end of the street,” one neighbourhood resident told Reuters.

“I saw a body on the street. No one was treating him but then I saw someone who appeared to be a regular citizen trying to do something to the body. That was enough for me and I turned and went back.”

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said officials were still trying to determine whether the attack targeted specifically targeted Israeli nationals.
“We are trying to clarify with intelligence, and we have no confirmation for this now, that this terror attack was directed against Israelis,” Netanyahu said.

A suicide car bombing in the capital Ankara killed 37 people this month. A similar bombing in Ankara last month killed 29 people. A Kurdish militant group has claimed responsibility for both of those bombings.

In January, a suicide bomber killed around 10 people, most of them German tourists, in Istanbul’s historic heart, an attack the government blamed on Islamic State.

NATO member Turkey faces multiple security threats. As part of a US-led coalition, it is fighting Islamic State in neighbouring Syria and Iraq. It is also battling PKK militants in its southeast, where a ceasefire collapsed last July, triggering the worst violence since the 1990s.

In its armed campaign in Turkey, the PKK has historically struck directly at the security forces and says it does not target civilians. However, the recent bombings suggest it could be moving toward a tactical shift.