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Suicide bomber attacks shopping area in Istanbul
A suicide attacker detonated a bomb on Istanbul's main pedestrian shopping street on Saturday, killing five people, the city's governor said. Turkey's health minister said 36 people were wounded in the attack including 12 foreign nationals.

Governor Vasip Sahin said the explosion occurred outside a local government office on Istiklal Street, which is also home to cafes, restaurants and foreign consulate buildings. Sahin said one of wounded victims died in hospital and that the attacker was among the dead.

The private Dogan news agency said at least three of the injured are Israeli nationals and that the wounded included two children. And private NTV said at least one Iranian was among the injured. The Israeli foreign ministry confirmed Israeli nationals were injured but did not provide details.

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 in the areas making frantic calls to check in with their loved ones and assure them of their safety.

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

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu was convening a security meeting in Istanbul following the attack. There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

Cengiz Fidaner, who owns a cafe on a side street near the explosion site, told The Associated Press "the explosion was not so big but I felt it in my heart because our people died. They want a war but our people want peace. This is because of Newroz."

Turkey had heightened security in Ankara and Istanbul in the run-up to a Kurdish spring festival of Newroz on March 21, which Kurds in Turkey traditionally use to assert their ethnic identity and demand greater rights. The German consulate, located in the same neighbourhood as the blast, had been closed in recent days over security concerns.

The U.S. Consulate in Istanbul expressed sadness and shock over the attack on its Twitter account.
Did we include a hashtag?

Posted by: Steve White 2016-03-19
http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=449510