{"id":10506,"date":"2016-01-13T09:03:26","date_gmt":"2016-01-13T17:03:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/spijue.wpengine.com\/news\/suicide-bomber-kills-10-wounds-15-in-istanbul\/"},"modified":"2016-01-13T09:03:26","modified_gmt":"2016-01-13T17:03:26","slug":"suicide-bomber-kills-10-wounds-15-in-istanbul","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/news\/suicide-bomber-kills-10-wounds-15-in-istanbul\/","title":{"rendered":"Suicide bomber kills 10, wounds 15 in Istanbul"},"content":{"rendered":"

ISTANBUL \u2014<\/strong> A suicide bomber affiliated with the Islamic State group detonated a bomb in a historic district of Istanbul popular with tourists Tuesday morning, killing at least 10 people \u2014 nine of them German tourists \u2014 and wounding 15 others, Turkish officials said.<\/p>\n

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the bomber who carried out the attack in Istanbul\u2019s Sultanahmet district was a member of IS and pledged to battle the militant group until it no longer \u201cremains a threat\u201d to Turkey or the world.<\/p>\n

Davutoglu described the attacker as a \u201cforeign national.\u201d Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus had previously said the perpetrator was born in 1988 and was a Syrian national, but the private Dogan news agency claimed the bomber was Saudi-born.<\/p>\n

\u201cTurkey won\u2019t backtrack in its struggle against Daesh by even one step,\u201d Davutoglu said, referring to IS by its Arabic acronym. \u201cThis terror organization, the assailants and all of their connections will be found and they will receive the punishments they deserve.\u201d<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s state-run news agency said Davutoglu held a telephone conversation with German chancellor Angela Merkel to express his condolences. A senior government official confirmed that most of the victims were German. Merkel had earlier said they were part of a German travel group.<\/p>\n

\u201cI 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,\u201d President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said.<\/p>\n

Davutoglu said the death toll of 10 did not include the suicide bomber.<\/p>\n

Merkel, speaking at a news conference in Berlin, decried the attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cToday Istanbul was hit; Paris has been hit, Tunisia has been hit, Ankara has been hit before,\u201d she said. \u201cInternational terrorism is once again showing its cruel and inhuman face today.\u201d<\/p>\n

The explosion, which could be heard from several neighborhoods, was at a park that is home to a landmark obelisk, some 25 yards from the historic Blue Mosque.<\/p>\n

Turkey\u2019s Dogan news agency reported that one Norwegian and one Peruvian were also among the wounded, and Seoul\u2019s Foreign Ministry told reporters via text message that a South Korean had a finger injury. The Norwegian Foreign Ministry told news agency NTB that the Norwegian tourist was slightly hurt and was being treated in a local hospital.<\/p>\n

Kurtulmus, the deputy premier, said two of the wounded were in serious condition.<\/p>\n

Germany and Denmark have warned their citizens to avoid crowds outside tourist attractions in Istanbul.<\/p>\n

Last year, Turkey agreed to take a more active role in the U.S.-led battle against the IS group. Turkey opened its bases to U.S. aircraft to launch air raids on the extremist group in Syria and has carried out a limited number of strikes on the group itself.<\/p>\n

It has also moved to tighten security along its 560-mile border with Syria in a bid to stem the flow of militants.<\/p>\n

The attack comes at a time of heightened violence between Turkey\u2019s security forces and militants linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers\u2019 Party, or PKK, in the country\u2019s mostly-Kurdish southeast.<\/p>\n

The country is also dealing with more than 2 million Syrian refugees and a wave of migrants from Syria and other countries pouring across Turkey to Europe.<\/p>\n

Police sealed the area, barring people from approaching in case of a second explosion, and a police helicopter hovered overhead.<\/p>\n

The Sultanahmet neighborhood is Istanbul\u2019s main sightseeing area and includes the Topkapi Palace and the former Byzantine church of Haghia Sophia, now a museum.<\/p>\n

Erdem Koroglu, who was working at a nearby office, told NTV television he saw several people on the ground following the blast.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was difficult to say who was alive or dead,\u201d Koroglu said. \u201cBuildings rattled from the force of the explosion.\u201d<\/p>\n

Halil Ibrahim Peltek, a shopkeeper near the area of the blast told The Associated Press it had \u201can earthquake effect.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThere was panic because the explosion was violent,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Davutoglu immediately convened a security meeting with the country\u2019s interior minister and other officials.<\/p>\n

As with previous attacks, authorities imposed a news blackout, barring media from showing images of the dead or injured or reporting any details of the investigation.<\/p>\n

Turkey suffered two major bombing attacks last year, both blamed on the Islamic State group.<\/p>\n

More than 30 people were killed in a suicide attack in the town of Suruc, near Turkey\u2019s border with Syria, in July.<\/p>\n

Two suicide bombs exploded in October outside Ankara\u2019s main train station as people gathered for a peace rally, killing more than 100 in Turkey\u2019s deadliest-ever attack. The prosecutor\u2019s office said that attack was carried out by a local IS cell.<\/p>\n

Last month, Turkish authorities arrested two suspected IS militants they said were planning suicide bombings during New Year\u2019s celebrations in the capital Ankara.<\/p>\n

___<\/p>\n

Fraser reported from Ankara, Turkey. Mehmet Guzel in Istanbul, Kirsten Grieshaber and Geir Moulson in Berlin and Jan M. Olsen in Copenhagen, Denmark contributed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ISTANBUL \u2014 A suicide bomber affiliated with the Islamic State group detonated a bomb in a historic district of Istanbul popular with tourists Tuesday morning, killing at least 10 people \u2014 nine of them German tourists \u2014 and wounding 15 others, Turkish officials said. Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu said the bomber who carried out […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":107,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":4,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[65],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-10506","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news","tag-nation-world"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10506","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/107"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10506"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10506\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10506"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10506"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10506"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=10506"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}