Car Bomb in Istanbul Kills 11

Reports said a parked car packed with explosives was detonated by remote control

ISTANBUL — A car bombing that targeted a police vehicle near a central tourist district in Istanbul on Tuesday instantly killed 11 people and wounded dozens, Turkish officials said, the latest in a series of deadly attacks in the country.

Explosives in a parked car were detonated by remote control as a police shuttle bus passed through the historic Beyazit district during rush hour, Governor Vasip Sahin of Istanbul said in a televised statement.

Seven of the dead were police officers, Mr. Sahin said, and 36 people were wounded. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. Istanbul has been on high alert since two suicide attacks this year attributed to the Islamic State.

The attack on Tuesday occurred close to Istanbul University, the Vezneciler subway station and the historic district, which includes the 16th-century Suleymaniye Mosque.

RECENT TERRORIST ATTACKS IN TURKEY

• March 19, 2016

  A suicide bomber struck a main avenue in Istanbul,killing at least four, including two Americans. Turkey said the Islamic State had carried out the attack.

• March 17, 2016

  A car rigged with explosives blew up in a public square in Ankara, killing more than 30. A Kurdish militant group claimed responsibility.

• Feb. 17, 2016

  A blast in Ankara hit a convoy of buses filled with soldiers at a traffic light, killing 28 and wounding more than 60 others.

• Jan. 12, 2016

  A suicide bomber blew himself up and killed 10 tourists, all foreigners, in an attack on Istanbul's central historic district.

• Oct. 10, 2015

  Suicide bombers hit a lunchtime peace rally in Ankara,killing about 100 people. No one has claimed responsibility.

Video from the scene showed a police shuttle bus flipped on its side with its windows blown out, alongside another police bus with scorch marks and near the wreckage of a charred car. Other damaged vehicles were nearby.

Militants from the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., which has carried out an insurgency against the Turkish state for more than three decades, have claimed responsibility for similar attacks against Turkish security forces since the breakdown last July of a fragile peace process.

A militant group with links to the Kurdish organization claimed responsibility for two major attacks this year in the capital, Ankara, that struck a military convoy andcivilians, killing dozens.

Violence has surged in the country’s predominately Kurdish southeast in recent months, after a major military operation to eradicate militants from their strongholds in the region.

The Turkish authorities have imposed round-the-clock curfews across several southeastern cities and pounded Kurdish militant targets with tanks and artillery, and they claim to have killed almost 5,000 militants.

Fears about terrorism have been blamed for the greatest decline in tourism in Turkey since 1999. The Ministry of Tourism announced last month that the number of visitors in April fell 28 percent from a year earlier.

(Source : nytimes.com)

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